Speed Chess campaign starts today

World Champion Magnus Carlsen will take on 2018 World Junior Champion Parham Maghsoodloo today in his first Speed Chess Championship match since he won the tournament in 2016 and 2017. He defeated Hikaru Nakamura in the finals of the Chess.com tournament back then, while in Carlsen’s absence Hikaru beat Wesley So in the final in 2018 and 2019. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was the first player into the quarterfinals after beating Nihal Sarin 16.5:11.5 in Sunday’s opening match.

The Speed Chess Championship is a 16-player online knockout tournament that features 3-hour matches consisting of 90 minutes of 5+1 blitz games, 60 minutes of 3+1 blitz games and 30 minutes of 1+1 bullet games. The players play as many games as fit in the allotted time, with a short break between the sections. A tie at the end is decided by 4 more bullet games followed, if required, by an Armageddon game.

Half of the 16 players in this year’s event were invited, while the other half made it through a series of qualifiers. The field is as follows: