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A tense struggle
The era of elite online chess tournaments has seen a major rivalry develop between world champion Magnus Carlsen and blitz specialist Hikaru Nakamura. In the very first event organized by the Norwegian, the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, the world champion defeated Nakamura in a closely-contested final match which, by the way, was played almost exactly one year ago, on 3 May 2020. The same players would also play the deciding match of the tour finals in August, with Carlsen again getting the better of his opponent. Naka, on the other hand, knocked Carlsen out of the Lindores Abbey Challenge in the semifinals.
The New In Chess Classic, the fifth leg of the Champions Chess Tour, began on Saturday. GM Teimour Radjabov leads with 4/5 ahead of GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Alireza Firouzja, who are on 3.5/5. How to watch?The games of the New In Chess Classic preliminaries can be found here as part of our live events.
Candidates pick up the pieces in disrupted hunt for chess title match washingtontimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtontimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Predictions, predictions
[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]
With the Candidates Tournament resuming the day after this comes out, all eyes are turning to Yekaterinburg. So I thought, perhaps somewhat foolishly, that I’d add my voice to the hubbub of predictions, thus preparing to get egg all over my face or, as you might say, becoming “Ovi-ready”.
More than a year after the first half, this is almost a completely separate tournament, which feels like a race with significant handicaps. The standings have been reprised in many places elsewhere, so I’ll just run down the list starting with the two leaders, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
Polgar Challenge winner
Anish Giri, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are playing in the Candidates Tournament and therefore couldn’t accept their automatic qualifying spots for those in the top 8 of the tour standings, but Wesley So, Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov, Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura all play.
17-year-old superstar Alireza Firouzja was voted back in by chess24 premium members, who also voted for Daniil Dubov, but the Russian was unable to play as he’s commentating on the Candidates from Yekaterinburg.
15-year-old Praggnanandhaa now has the chance to face off against the very best in the world after dominating the first event on the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour. He’s going to have some help preparing from the very best.