Round 04 tiebreaks: Carlsen advances to 1/8 finals
Goryachkina will face Saduakassova in the women’s quarterfinals Saturday, July 24th, 2021 – After round four’s two classical games, twelve of the twenty-four matches (50%!) didn’t yield a clear winner and were decided today in the tiebreaks – two rapid games 25/10, followed by two more rapid 10/10 games. Unexpectedly, no blitz nor Armageddon games were needed, so the shortest round is now in the books. Although Radoslaw Wojtaszek really put World Champion Magnus Carlsen to the test in the classical games, the experience and strength in rapid play of the latter would help him pull through in the rapid games and that was exactly what happened this afternoon. After a solid draw with Black in the first game, Carlsen started pressing on the white side of a Nimzo-Indian defence. On move eighteen, 18…Nc6 would have probably kept the balance but 18…Na6 gave Magnus an edge: “knights on the rim are dim” is the rhyme that always comes to mind in these cases. Even though White’s bishop is theoretically “bad”, it does a great job cramping Black’s own knight and as long as the queens are on the board White is generally doing very well. Carlsen’s well-known endgame technique did the rest, achieving qualification for the next round, in which he will face Andrey Esipenko, who defeated him recently at Tata Steel. It’s always a pleasure to hear from the World Champion himself so don’t forget to check out a brief interview he gave to us after the tiebreak. Nikita Vitiugov is a really tough player and the two classical games with Peter Svidler are a testament to his flawless play. But Svidler is a tough nut to crack and the first rapid was a joy to watch. He decided to repeat the line that Carlsen used in his classical game against Wojtaszek. However, Vitiugov deviated with a piece sacrifice for a pawn and the initiative. It was quite complex most of the time but eventually, the compensation fizzled out and Svidler took the point home with an attack of his own. The idea 37.Kg4, 38.Kh5 and the bishop sac on g7 (37.Kg4 Rg1+ 38.Kh5 Kg8 39.Rd8+ Bf8 40.Bxg7 Kxg7 41.f6+ Kg8 42.Ne3 h6 43.Nf5 hxg5 44.Ne7+ Kh7 45.Rxf8 1-0), played nearly instantly by Svidler, was one of the most exciting moments of the round. Having qualified for the next round, Svidler popped into the press center for a brief chat. But the “surprise” of the round – and clearly of the tournament – is the outstanding performance of Serbian prodigy Velimir Ivic. Still only 18 and clearly underrated with 2581, he has taken down Robert Hungaski (2514), Francisco Vallejo Pons (2710) and Matthias Bluebaum (2669) all by 1,5-0,5 score, and this afternoon he qualified to the fifth round by defeating the really tough Russian player Dmitry Andreikin (2724) by 2-0 in the tiebreaks for a total score of 3-1. After such a run an interview was clearly in order and he was kind enough to give us his thoughts on his performance so far. Both Alexander Grischuk and Etienne Bacrot were able to advance to the next round with clear 1,5-0,5 wins over Anton Korobov and Pavel Ponkratov respectively. However, Vasif Durarbayli, Sergey Karjakin and Andrey Esipenko all had to qualify in the 10/10 games, after their opponents held their own in the first series of 25/25 rapids. Esipenko was especially happy with the result of his match against Daniil Dubov, as the latter has generally been a very difficult opponent for him. We got a chance to talk to him after the round and confirm that his English is improving rapidly! We can expect some fantastic games from the 1/8 finals pairings, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Carlsen, Magnus (2847) – Esipenko, Andrey (2716)Bacrot, Etienne (2678) – Piorun, Kacper (2608)Grischuk, Alexander (2778) – Duda, Jan-Krzysztof (2738)Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi (2726) – Durarbayli, Vasif (2625)Ivic, Velimir (2582) – Fedoseev, Vladimir (2696)Martirosyan, Haik M. (2632) – Tabatabaei, M. Amin (2613)Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime (2749) – Karjakin, Sergey (2757)Svidler, Peter (2714) – Shankland, Sam (2709) One of the most interesting tiebreaks in the women’s group was the match between Kateryna Lagno and Bibisara Assaubayeva. Would the young Kazakhstan prodigy be able to continue her excellent run of play in the rapid games against the two-times European Women’s Champion? The key game of the match was the first one. With Black, Lagno was pressing all the way but Assaubayeva defended with a stalemate fortress which, for some time, seemed to be enough for a draw. However, eventually, Lagno was able to break down the fortress and force mate. With White in the second game, she kept it simple and secured the pass to the next round. She gave us her thoughts on her performance and also on her upcoming match against Tan Zhongyi. The other three tiebreaks were hard-fought. On board one, Aleksandra Goryachkina defeated Antoaneta Stefanova quite convincedly with a clear 2-0 score in the first two rapid games while Nana Dzahnidze and Dinara Saduakassova (pictured below) sealed the deal in the second series of 10/10 games against their opponents Polina Shuvalova and Alina Kashlinskaya respectively. The quarterfinals in the Women’s World Cup are served and they will be very exciting. Goryachkina, Aleksandra (2596) – Saduakassova, Dinara (2483)Dzagnidze, Nana (2523) – Muzychuk, Anna (2527)Kosteniuk, Alexandra (2472) – Gunina, Valentina (2437)Tan, Zhongyi (2511) – Lagno, Kateryna (2559) Off the board, we interviewed Henrik Carlsen, the World Champion’s father, who kindly gave us his thoughts on his son’s performance here – “up and down, although that’s to be expected” – and his views on his opponent Ian Nepomniachtchi – “many years a friend, now an opponent” – in the upcoming World Championship final in Dubai, scheduled for November. We also had the chance to catch up with FIDE’s Fair Play Officer for the World Cup, Bojana Bejatovic, from North Macedonia. In a brief interview, Bojana explained her duties here and gave us a clear idea of the safe playing environment in which the players are performing. Round 5 – 1/8 finals for the open group and quarterfinals for the women’s group – are scheduled for tomorrow Sunday July 25th at 3 pm. Pairings of the round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal,
Round 04 Game 02: Wojtaszek forces tiebreak with Carlsen
Fedoseev, Shankland, Vachier-Lagrave and Vidit advance. Friday, July 23nd, 2021 – This afternoon’s round promised to be lively and it definitely wasn’t disappointing. After yesterday’s results, several players had to win on-demand to equalise their matches and force the tiebreak, while many others had an aggressive game and a win in mind precisely to avoid the tie and get an extra free day to regroup. Also, some players may obtain the right to play in the next Grand Prix series, as long as they reach the quarter-finals. With regard to the Women’s Cup, an added benefit for reaching semifinals is the direct qualification to the future Women Grand Prix Series, the final dates of which will be decided very soon. The first player to finish his game in the open section was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. After a solid draw yesterday with Black, he faced a very risky albeit fashionable variation of the Sicilian which his opponent, Praggnanandhaa, had prepared for today. The key idea of the game was the Frenchman’s positional queen sacrifice (planned on move 24.Kb2), which Maxime thought about for nearly 10 minutes. It worked out well and now he will face the winner of the tiebreak between Artemiev and Karjakin. After the game, Maxime popped into the studio for a brief interview. Meanwhile, in the playing hall, the World Champion Magnus Carlsen was having the time of his life, attacking his opponent’s kingside with great energy. At some point it seemed that he was crushing Radoslaw Wojtaszek, however, his own kingside was also battered up by now, so it was touch-and-go. Radoslaw Wojtaszek – Magnus Carlsen The key moment of the game was move twenty-five when Carlsen chose 25.Bc2 instead of 25.Rxh7 which is +10 according to the computer engine. As always, it’s hard to speculate what the World Champion might have missed, and today he wasn’t available for an interview. Our best guess is that he didn’t see the crushing 30.Bc2+ followed by 31.Rh8! idea in the following long variation: 25. Rxh7 fxg6 26. Qxg6 Rf1+ 27. Rxf1 Qxd5+ 28. Kg1 Qd4+ 29. Rf2 d5 30. Bc2 Bc5 31.Rh8+ Kxh8 32. Qh7# but of course it could be any of the other complicated lines that might have occurred. Magnus discussed some variations with his opponent after the game. He seems to be pointing to the h7 square in this fantastic photo by Eric Rosen, one of the event’s two official top-notch photographers. Obviously, tomorrow’s tiebreak between these two players will be very exciting. Kacper Piorun is one of the lesser-known players that are slowly but surely making a name for themselves in Sochi. Today he qualified for the fifth round – his best performance to date – by eliminating one of the pleasant surprises of the tournament, Javokhir Sindarov. The Polish grandmaster was kind enough to pop in to the press centre for a small interview in which we also discovered that he is a 5-time World Champion…. In solving! Uzbekistan’s pride, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who eliminated Giri in the previous round, was on the verge of being eliminated himself when he lost yesterday with White against Vasif Durarbayli. However, needing to win today with Black on-demand, he took advantage of his opponent’s slightly passive opening play to achieve a very good middlegame, that transitioned into a clearly better endgame. His opponent defended tenaciously and only after five tough hours of play Nodirbek was able to take the point home and force what will definitely be one of the most interesting tiebreaks tomorrow. Even though he was quite tired he found time to come to the press centre for a quick interview. After quite a peaceful round, things heated up today in the Women’s group, as several players had to win on demand to stay in contention for the top prize. None less than six of the eight games had a winner, a high percentage indeed. Number one seed Aleksandra Goryachkina lost painfully yesterday to Antoaneta Stefanova but today she made a comeback with a nice win to force the tiebreak. This evenly-matched encounter will definitely be closely followed tomorrow afternoon. Also winning on-demand was Nana Dzagnidze, forcing the tiebreak against her opponent Polina Shuvalova. Nana Dzagnidze – Polina Shuvalova After 17.Bxh6! she was already winning, as the main idea behind the piece sacrifice is that 17…gxh6 18.Rad1 attacks the queen and after 18…Qxc4 19.Qh5! followed by Re4 gives White an unstoppable attack. Nana went into details of this exciting game in the press center. Finally, four match-ups that finished in a draw yesterday had a decisive score today. Valentina Gunina, Anna Muzychuk and former World Champion Zhongyi Tan all won their games with good endgame technique, while Alexandra Kosteniuk created a fantastic double exchange sacrifice that wiped her opponent off the board. All these players advance to the next round. Alexandra gave us her thoughts in the post-game interview. Pairings of the fourth round tiebreaks, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
Round 04 Game 01: Wojtaszek holds Carlsen to a draw
Hard-fought games in the Galaxy Centre. Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 – A total of 301 players competed in the first round of the World Cup ten days ago, but only 48 of them returned this afternoon for the fourth round, among them the world champion Magnus Carlsen, still in full contention. There are still 32 players left in the open group and 16 in the women’s group. The ceiling & wall panels of the playing venue allowed the organisation to resize the game area to create a superior game-space ratio for the players, avoiding uncomfortable situations that had occurred on previous editions of this same event. At this stage of the World Cup, all the players are world-class candidates, many of them the best players of their countries: it’s impossible to find an “easy” game in this round. As usual, all eyes were focused on the board one game between Poland’s number two player Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Magnus Carlsen. Radoslaw Wojtaszek – Magnus Carlsen The key moment of the game was move 27 for Black, when 27…Ndxe5! initiates a long variation in which Black sacrifices a lot of material for a direct attack on White’s king. One can never know with world-class players but maybe Carlsen couldn’t see a direct win and preferred the game line, which is also strong but allows White’s defensive queen sacrifice idea, which kept the game more or less balanced. After a few moves, a draw was agreed although the final position is still quite complex. Wojtaszek went through these variations for us in a brief post-game interview. In another tremendously exciting game, French top grandmaster Etienne Bacrot was able to pull ahead in the mini-match by defeating his opponent, the tough Russian 2630 player Pavel Ponkratov. Etienne Bacrot – Pavel Ponkratov The key position occurred after 25.Ne5! Rxb2 with total chaos on the board. White was nearly always winning but it was quite tricky. After the fireworks faded, Bacrot took home the point and came to the press-centre to give us his thoughts on the game. Afterwards, he popped into the studio with FIDE World Cup commentator GM Almira Skripchenko to go over the variations in a must-see video clip. Another very strong player that hasn’t been mentioned yet in these reports is Iranian number three, M.Amin Tabatabei who took down India’s number two Pentala Harikrishna – who out-rates him by more than 100 points – in a very nice positional game which ended in a well-played knight ending. However, in his post-game interview, Amin was very cautious about the rest of the match as he knew that tomorrow would be a very tough game. The last game to finish produced an unexpected result. After a tricky move order from his opponent in the opening, USA grandmaster Sam Shankland came out on the worse end and was even close to losing. However, he eventually equalised and the game was heading for a draw. But suddenly his opponent, Rinat Jumabayev – who defeated Caruana in the previous round – played too ambitiously and fell into a difficult position. Shankland’s well-known endgame technique did the rest. Even though he was visibly exhausted he was kind enough to find time to give us his impressions in a brief interview. In general, this afternoon’s round was very exciting, with hard-fought games. Although many of them ended in a draw pending tomorrow’s rematch – quite a few high-rated players had Black today – some other players were able to chalk up their first win and will return to the board tomorrow with a big advantage to qualify for the next round. Together with Bacrot, Shankland and Tabatabei the following players scored the full point: Vasif Durarbayli, Vladimir Fedoseev, Haik Martirosyan, Kacper Piorun and Vidit Gujrathi. The fourth round in the women’s section was quite peaceful although most of the games were hard-fought. Without a doubt, the surprise of the round was top-seed Aleksandra Goryachkina losing to former female World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova. Although the rematch has yet to be played tomorrow, the Bulgarian grandmaster has a good opportunity to go through to the quarter-finals, at the same time eliminating the number one player of the section. Antoaneta Stefanova – Aleksandra Goryachkina The key moment of the game was the tactical mistake made by Goryachkina on move 26…Qxc5?? (26…Re5 was probably equal). After 27.Rc1 the knight on c4 is pinned and will be lost. Again, one can only speculate on what the top Russian grandmaster missed: maybe that after 27…Re-d3 (played quickly) the knight can’t be captured because of 28…Rd1 winning, but both 28.Kh1 and also 28.b4! are winning for White. Chess is such a difficult game! Stefanova happily went through the game for us in a brief interview. The only other decisive outcome in the women’s group was Polina Shuvalova defeating Nana Dzagnidze. All the rest of the eight games ended in draws and will be decided between tomorrow and the tie-breaks on Saturday. Pairings of the second game of the fourth round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
Liaocheng China celebrates International Chess Day with Grand Chess Cultural Festival
Liaocheng City (China), responded to FIDE’s initiative by organizing a grand chess cultural festival to mark International Chess Day, including an online chess puzzle campaign, kids tournaments, Ferris wheels chess games, chess seminar, etc. Today Liaocheng opens the chess cultural festival and officially starts various activities to promote chess and International Chess Day. Liaocheng organizer invited chess fans in China to play online tactic puzzles on a chess APP from 19-21 July. Thousands of chess fans united to reach 720,000 points by answering chess puzzles with 1 puzzle 1 point. The theme is “pawn will help promotion”, meaning every chess fan will contribute if he or she is willing to take part in and cooperate with others. Another interesting activity was “Chess Poster Show”. Liaocheng designed many beautiful chess posters dedicated to International Chess Day and freely mail to 100 chess clubs in different cities in the nation. 100 Chess clubs, joining the campaign, posted photos or videos of these posters on their social media channels to promote International Chess Day in their city. Different chess tournaments also started on this Day, both OTB and online involving both professionals or amateurs. The winners got a chance to play at the highest altitude in Liaocheng city Ferris wheel. Former Women’s World Champion, Xie Jun (pictured below) hosted a chess seminar in Liaocheng talking about chess history, chess education, etc. Through live broadcasting, people were free to attend the seminar. Hundreds of school principals, trainers and parents have attended.
Young players from 40 countries to take part in Festival «Rudaga – Kaissa 2021»
FIDE endorsed tournament will be held in Jurmala, Latvia from July 23 – August 01. Young chess players from about 40 countries will participate in the Rudaga – Kaissa 2021 Children and Youth Chess Festival, which will be held in the Latvian resort city of Jurmala with the support of the International Chess Federation (FIDE). The pre-competition press conference with the organizers was held yesterday on International Chess Day. The festival will take place for the 13th time and will bring together chess players under the age of 20, representing 40 countries, including Latvia, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Ghana, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Tournaments will be held both over-the-board and online. “We are constantly looking for interesting ideas all over the world and we see Latvia is showing passion and creativity in hosting interesting events, primarily for children and young people. We also hope that at some point Latvia will be hosting a major tournament for professional players. In 2019 the Grand Prix leg was held in Riga, and a children’s championship supported by FIDE was conducted as its side event. So, the tradition is already emerging, and we hope that it will expand in the future,” – said FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich. According to him, FIDE’s support for children and youth chess tournaments is the basis for the further development of the sport. “We are thinking about future generations all the time. Involving new generations in chess has a huge potential. Moreover, there are countries where this is already a tradition – Russia, the Baltic countries, European and Asian countries, India, the USA, China, but in many parts of the world we still have a lot of work to do,” he added. Tournament director Inessa Testelecs noted that the upcoming chess festival will include a large side-events program. “We will have chess master classes and simultaneous games with chess stars and grandmasters. It will be a great honor for children to play against famous opponents whose chess career was long and impressive,” she said. In addition to standard prizes – commemorative cups, diplomas, medals and memorable gifts – the winner of the over-the-board tournament will receive accreditation for the World Chess Olympiad 2022, an entrance ticket for the Opening Ceremony and accommodation for two nights in the official hotel of the Olympiad, while top players of the online event will be awarded free online group lectures with Antoaneta Stefanova, Women’s World Champion (2004-2006) and Ruslan Ponomariov, FIDE World Champion (FIDE World Chess Championship 2002).
Round 03 tiebreaks: Giri and Mamedyarov eliminated!
The new generation creates havoc in the tiebreaks. Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 – Great action this afternoon in the tiebreak session of the third round. Seventeen encounters had to be decided today (13 in the open group and 4 in the women’s group), in order to pair the players for the fourth round, scheduled for Thursday. You can see that the players are starting to get tired and that tomorrow’s rest day will be hugely appreciated by the players that have advanced today. Unexpectedly, most of them decided their tie-break in the first two 25/10 games. Vladislav Artemiev, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Praggnanandhaa R, Pavel Ponkratov were all able to defeat their opponents by a clear 2-0 score, while Etienne Bacrot, Sam Shankland, Peter Svidler (pictured below) and Pouya Idani advanced to the fourth round with a 1.5-0.5 result. Nonetheless, two of the favourites to win the tournament were eliminated in the tiebreaks this afternoon. World’s number six Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 2782) was unable to straighten out the 1-1 tie in the classical games and was eventually knocked out of the cup by Haik M. Martirosyan, former under-16 world champion, and currently Armenia’s number seven player (2632). In the first game, Mamedyarov, playing with White, sacrificed a pawn out of the opening for some compensation but Martirosyan defended well and outplayed his opponent in the endgame. Not wanting to play for a draw in the second game with White, Martirosyan went all-out for a win against Mamedyarov’s very dubious opening set-up. In a highly complex position, his superb move 35.Kf2! blocking the f-pawn and preparing an assault on Black’s king was enough for Black to realise that he had to exchange pieces and simplify to an easily drawn rook ending. We caught up with Martirosyan for a brief interview in which he went over the match. The other major upset of the afternoon was the elimination of Anish Giri (2776), playing for the Netherlands. Both of the classical games against his opponent, seventeen-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov, ended in a draw and things seemed to be safe for the world’s number eight player. However, the Uzbekistan 2634 prodigy played really well in the two 25/10 tiebreak games, first defeating Giri in a tricky rook + knight ending and then holding an extremely difficult position in the second game, until Giri over-pressed an equal ending and eventually lost. Another young player that qualified for the fourth round is 21-years-old USA grand master Jeffrey Xiong (2709), currently, number 33 in the world, who took down Sweden’s number one player Nils Grandelius (2661) after a really tough match that went back and forth. Jeffrey was kind enough to pop into the press center and give us his thoughts on the games. Two matches went full throttle to the end. Santosh Gujrathi Vidit (2726) defeated his teammate Baskaran Adhiban in the second blitz game for an overall score of 4.5-3.5, giving you an idea of the resilient nature of “The Beast”. In his post-game interview, Vidit went over the key moments of the match. The only game that went the full distance to the “Armageddon” was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2749) against David Paravyan (2625), who gave the Frenchman the match of his life. After many missed opportunities, in addition to an incorrect 3-fold position draw claim in the second blitz game, Maxime played a great attacking “sudden-death” game, winning by a total score of 5-4, and will now face India’s prodigy Praggnanandhaa in the next round. Check out an interview with the winner here. There were four tie-breaks in the women’s group and the only one that ended in the first two 25/10 games was the match between Nana Dzagnidze (rated 2523) and Carissa Yip (2430) which fell to the side of the experienced Georgian player. Dzagnidze won her second classical game on-demand and forced the tie-break in which she clearly outplayed her young opponent, winning the two games. Dzagnidze offered her thoughts on the match-up with her young opponent in a brief interview. The other three qualifiers were twenty-year-old Polina Shuvalova (2489) who defeated her even younger teammate Leya Garifullina (2390) by 3.5-2.5 in a very close match. Polina gave the thoughts on the match in her postgame interview. Also advancing to the fourth round was 17-years-old Bibisara Assaubayeva (2389) who defeated the very experienced Georgian grandmaster Bela Khotenashvili (2471) by 4-2. Finally, Mariya Muzychuk (2550) (pictured below) was able to join her sister in the fourth round after defeating her teammate from the Ukraine Olympic team Anna Ushenina (2429) by 4.5-3.5 in the by far most exciting women’s tie-break this afternoon. The players (and the staff!) will all enjoy a well-deserved rest day to replenish their strength, maybe with a cable-car mountain visit or a hike in the nearby woods, or just a short walk around the lovely town. Round 4 will start on Thursday 22nd at 3 pm sharp, with a field that has been drastically whittled down to 48 players, 32 in the open group and 16 in the women’s cup. Pairings of the fourth round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
FIDE and NBC Sports announce chess partnership for the World Championship Match 2021
Each of Night of Event Followed by 30-Minute Next-Day Highlight Show on NBCSN NBCSN To Present More Than 20 Hours of Chess Coverage for Duration of Match The International Chess Federation is pleased to announce a new media partnership for the FIDE World Championship Match 2021 with NBC Sports, which will present coverage of each game on NBCSN. Organized by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), in partnership with EXPO-2020 in Dubai, the event will see the reigning world champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, defend his title in a 14-game matchup against his Challenger, Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia. The two players will compete for a prize fund of EUR 2 million (USD 2,360,000). Initially planned for 2020, and postponed due to the pandemic, this clash between the two best chess Grandmasters in the world will finally take place between 26 November and 16 December 2021. Starting on 27 November, 2021, the daily 30-minute shows on NBCSN from the FIDE World Championship Match 2021 will bring the highlights of each game not only to the hardcore chess fans but to the much wider and highly-engaged community of sports lovers throughout the United States. Each highlight show will be replayed the day after it premieres, totaling one hour of chess content every night, starting on 28 November and for the remaining duration of the match. The videos will convey the emotions, stories, and expert opinions, including commentary by Maurice Ashley, who will focus on making chess accessible for all levels of viewers. Well-known as a commentator for high-profile chess events, Ashley made history in 1999 when he became the first African-American ever to be awarded the title of chess Grandmaster. “It’s exciting to be a part of the premier event in all of chess, one that will be followed by millions of passionate chess fans eager to see who will emerge victorious. Having NBC Sports on board is a brilliant development that will further help to push chess into the limelight where it certainly belongs”, said Ashley. Leveraging the massive surge in popularity that chess has experienced during 2020 and the first half of 2021, connected to the global lockdowns and the stunning success of ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, the media partnership between FIDE and NBC Sports will allow huge exposure to one of the most prestigious sport competitions in the World. The game of chess attracts a wide and diverse audience represented by traditional chess fans, but also a new generation of chess enthusiasts who, not only play, but also watch chess videos and streams as a way to learn, improve, or simply enjoy the games of the Grandmasters. “FIDE is happy and proud to partner with NBC for this groundbreaking project”, said Emil Sutovsky, FIDE’s Director General. For nearly a month chess will become a regular guest in millions of American homes. We are looking forward to delivering a show that would appeal to chess aficionados and those new to our beautiful game. They say – chess is gaining momentum – our aim is to take public interest in chess to an entirely new level, when we could speak of a global regular audience and sustainable growth. There is no better way to start such an ambitious project, than to have the major event of chess calendar, the World Championship Match on the major US network for three weeks running. Tune in!” NBC Sports serves sports fans 24/7 with premier live events, insightful studio shows, and compelling original programming. Now, the World Chess Championship, one of the oldest traditions in the world of sports, will be a part of NBC Sports’ history. “We look forward to presenting the world’s finest chess in fast-paced coverage throughout the 14-day match,” said Nick Casanova, NBC Sports.” ABOUT NBC SPORTS GROUP NBC Sports Group serves sports fans 24/7 with premier live events, insightful studio shows, and compelling original programming. The sports media company consists of NBC Sports, NBC Olympics, NBCSN, Golf Channel, Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, NBC Sports Regional Networks, NBC Sports Audio Network and NBC Sports Digital, which includes NBCSsports.com, NBCOlympics.com, GolfChannel.com, the digital assets of the NBC Sports Regional Networks, NBC Sports EDGE, the NBC Sports Talk franchise, multiple apps, and two transactional sports businesses, GolfNow and SportsEngine, and two direct-to-consumer products – NBC Sports Gold and GolfPass. NBC Sports Group possesses an unparalleled collection of media rights agreements, partnering with some of the most prestigious sports properties in the world: the International Olympic Committee and United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the NFL, NASCAR, INDYCAR, PGA TOUR, The R&A, PGA of America, USGA, Churchill Downs, Premier League, Tour de France, French Open, and many more. More information: https://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/about/
Round 03 Game 02: Fabiano Caruana eliminated from the World Cup
17 third-round matches go to tie-beaks tomorrow Monday, July 19th, 2021 – Rinat Jumabayev, Kazakhstan’s top player, rated 2637, advanced to the fourth round of the World Cup this afternoon by eliminating World’s number 2 player Fabiano Caruana. The first game of the two ended yesterday in a solid draw and it seemed logical that Caruana would be pressing today with the white pieces. In a complex variation of the Carlsbad Queen’s Gambit, Caruana played for a kingside attack with the thematic, albeit risky, 17.g4 push. He then sacrificed an exchange for some piece play compensation, although the computer is not impressed at all. But over the board Jumabaev wasn’t able to defend with precision, and soon he had to improvise with a queen sacrifice to keep the balance. The game was probably equal but very tricky and just one mistake (41.Qc4?) was enough for Black to win a piece tactically and seal the deal. Jumabaev kindly returned to the venue after his mandatory testing to tell us about the game and how he was feeling after defeating such a brilliant player. Check out an interview with the winner here. All this emotion occurred at the end of the round, but before that many other things had happened in the Galaxy Centre. The first qualifier of the afternoon was Daniil Dubov, who advanced to Round 4 after defeating Vladimir Malakhov by a clear 1.5-0.5 score. Although today’s game was quite solid, the key game was yesterday (Game 1) when Dubov played a very enterprising e5-e6 pawn thrust, taking the game into dark territory, from which he emerged victorious. His opponent in the 1/16 finals will be Andrey Esipenko in an all-Russian bout. In his post-game interview, Dubov took us through both games and told us what he was planning to do his two free days. Also qualifying at a speedy pace this afternoon was 2015 World Cup winner, Sergey Karjakin (Russia). His opponent Grigoriy Oparin had to win today on-demand with Black after losing an equal ending in the first game. However, defeating the former world champion contender with Black is not an easy task, and Oparin had to concede the draw after 38 moves. Karjakin will face the winner of tomorrow’s tiebreak between Boris Gelfand Vladislav Artemiev. He gave us his thoughts on the game in a short interview. Meanwhile, World Champion Magnus Carlsen was grinding out his second win against his team-mate Aryan Tari in an opposite-color bishop ending with a rook each. Maybe Tari had some better defensive chances at some point but Magnus’ technique proved to be too much for him and he had to resign on move 67. In his post-game interview, Magnus explained his thoughts on the two games of this round and how important it is for him to play classical games to get training for the World Championship. The following matches ended in a 1-1 tie and will be decided tomorrow, in what will be an absolutely tremendously exciting tie-break session in the Galaxy Centre: Matlakov – WojtaszekBacrot – AminTomashevsky – IdaniVidit – AdhibanGrandelius – XiongAbdusattorov – GiriMartirosyan – MamedyarovParavyan – Vachier-LagravePraggnanandhaa – KrasenkowArtemiev – GelfandCheparinov – SvidlerShankland – AreshchenkoPonkratov – Vakhidov In the ever-exciting women’s group, things are getting very interesting by the day. Top seeds Aleksandra Goryachkina, Kateryna Lagno (check out an interview with her) and Anna Muzychuk all drew their second game today and advance with ease to the next round while former World Champion Zhongyi Tan eliminated her opponent Marie Sebag (France) by a clear 2-0, the same result as Nino Batsiashvili who also advanced to the next round with a conclusive 2-0 score. Several other qualifiers had to win today on-demand to avoid going through tomorrow’s tiebreaks and therefore enjoy an extra rest day before the fourth round. These players include Antoaneta Stefanova, Elizabeth Paehtz, Sarasadat Khademalsharieh and Dinara Saduakassova Dinara joined us at the press center to talk us through her games and her plans for the next two rest days. Four matches were unable to provide a winner so they will be fought out tomorrow, in what will be an absolutely tremendously exciting tie-break session in the Galaxy Centre. Yip – DzagnidzeShuvalova – GarifullinaUshenina – Muzychuk, MKhotenashvili – Assaubayeva Pairings of the tiebreaks of the third round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov wins the Averbakh/Boleslavsky Award
The Yuri Averbakh/Isaac Boleslavsky Award for best book published in 2020 goes to “The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov (The Early Years: 1921-1948)”, written by Andrey Terekhov, and published by Russell Enterprises. The runners up were “Think Like a Machine”, by Noam Manella and Zeev Zohar (published by Quality Chess), and “Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships: Volume I (1920-1937)”, written by Sergey Voronkov, and published by Elk and Ruby. About the winner St. Petersburg native Andrey Terekhov is a FIDE Master, an ICCF International Master (correspondence chess) and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science. His best results at the board were victories in the 2008 Munich Open and the 2012 Nabokov Memorial. He currently resides in Singapore. This is his first book for Russell Enterprises. Vasily Smyslov, the seventh world champion, had a long and illustrious chess career. He played close to 3,000 tournament games over seven decades, from the time of Lasker and Capablanca to the days of Anand and Carlsen. From 1948 to 1958, Smyslov participated in four world championships, becoming world champion in 1957. Smyslov continued playing at the highest level for many years and made a stunning comeback in the early 1980s, making it to the finals of the candidates’ cycle. Only the indomitable energy of 20-year-old Garry Kasparov stopped Smyslov from qualifying for another world championship match at the ripe old age of 63! In this first volume of a multi-volume set, Russian FIDE master Andrey Terekhov traces the development of young Vasily from his formative years and becoming the youngest grandmaster in the Soviet Union to finishing second in the world championship match tournament. With access to rare Soviet-era archival material and invaluable family archives, the author complements his account of Smyslov’s growth into an elite player with dozens of fascinating photographs, many never seen before, as well as 49 deeply annotated games. German grandmaster Karsten Müller’s special look at Smyslov’s endgames rounds out this fascinating first volume. About the runner ups “Think Like a Machine” With the ascent of computer technology, humans have a chance to develop their thinking process based on hard evidence. Think Like a Machine explores human limitations and proposes new avenues for human thinking, inspired by computer engines. In positions taken almost exclusively from modern tournament play, the authors present jaw-dropping continuations which humans struggle to find, not due to lower human computing power, due to conceptual and perceptual limitations. In this book these “crazy” moves are analysed and categorised. If you want to expand your chess imagination, understanding and intuition, Think Like a Machine is the book is for you. Think Like A Machine is the second chess book co-written by Noam Manella and Zeev Zohar. Manella is a digital and Social Networks Researcher; Zohar is an accountant and businessman. Their previous book, Play Unconventional Chess and Win, was a highlight in chess publishing in 2014. “Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships: Volume I (1920-1937)” In his three-volume treatise, leading Russian chess historian Sergey Voronkov vividly brings to life the long-forgotten history of the Soviet championships held in 1920-1953. Volume I covers the first 10 championships from 1920-1937, as well as the title match between Botvinnik and Levenfish. The key contestants also include world champion Alekhine and challenger Bogoljubov, lesser-known Soviet champions Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, Verlinsky, and Rabinovich, and names that today will be unfamiliar yet were big stars at the time: Riumin, Alatortsev, Makogonov, Rauzer, Ragozin, Chekhover, and many others.
International Chess Day celebrated on July 20
“Dear chess friends, This Tuesday, July 20th, we will celebrate International Chess Day. As you probably know, this date also marks FIDE’s 97th anniversary. Last year, many of you joined us when we made an appeal to the members of our chess community and asked you to teach someone how to play chess to mark this day. This campaign turned into a truly global celebration of chess. Many people and institutions from “outside” the chess world echoed the initiative, and we managed to attract more people to our sport. This resulted in many thousands of new players who joined our ranks. Our family grew bigger, and that is always good news. In view of this success, we would like to repeat this campaign, and probably turn it into a yearly tradition from now on. Chess became one of the hottest trends in 2020, and millions of people are curious and eager to learn chess. Let’s give them a hand! You will find detailed instructions below. I would kindly ask you to distribute this information among your friends, members of your chess club or federation, associates and sponsors, and representatives of the media in your respective countries. Arkady DvorkovichFIDE President” WHO? Preferably a kid (it would be easier, and more rewarding for you both!), but it can also be a grown-up. Learning chess has beneficial effects, at any age! Choose someone close to you. You can change somebody’s life by teaching him/her a beautiful game, but you will also be spending some quality time and creating or reinforcing a special bond with that person. If your children already play, maybe you can invite your nephew or your son’s best friend. Maybe you can finally teach your boyfriend how to play, or your high-school best mate. Or you could propose this as an after-work activity with your colleagues at the office. WHEN? July 20th falls on a Tuesday, so the plan is that we make some preliminary posts on Monday announcing our plans, and then take social media by storm during Tuesday. However, we have the whole week to actually teach someone how to play, culminating with next weekend, July 24-25. Can we start the next week with one million new chess players? We believe so. HOW? Some of you might be seasoned chess teachers, but many others have never taught the basics chess to absolute beginners. During the days leading to the weekend, try to gather some materials, watch some tutorials, and do some reading. From FIDE, we will stimulate the exchange of information and will share the most interesting ones, in different languages. Let’s help each other with the preparations. SOCIAL MEDIA Last year, on International Chess Day, 13,633 tweets from 2,829 different contributors used the hashtag #Internationalchessday. That means we reached an audience of more than 122 million people and 202 million potential impacts – and that’s on Twitter alone! The campaign was also massively followed across other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, and International Chess Day became a trending topic in several countries. The trend was so strong that many global brands, institutions, and celebrities, joined the initiative. Let’s try to reach even higher numbers this year! You can start using the hashtag #Internationalchessday in your social media posts during the weekend leading to July 20th. But the very important day is Monday: please make sure to make at least one or two posts with the official hashtag, if possible early in the morning. That will ensure that other users will follow. If you have any doubts or suggestions, or you think you can contribute to this campaign in some other way, please don’t hesitate to contact us: David Lladadavid.llada@fide.com+ 34 623 021 120