Azerbaijan ready for Baku Chess Olympiad 2016

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen will play the FIDE World Cup that starts in Sochi, Russia on July 12th, though as one of the Top 50 seeds he’ll join from Round 2 on July 15th. The tournament will be played in the Galaktika Centre in Krasnaya Polana | photo: FIDE. Magnus last played in the 2017 World Cup, when he overpressed and got knocked out by Bu Xiangzhi in Round 3. Although Ian Nepomniachtchi and Wesley So have declined invitations the rest of the world Top 10, including world no. 2 Fabiano Caruana, defending champion Teimour Radjabov and losing finalist Ding Liren, are all set to play.

 

 

There are two spots in the 2022 Candidates Tournament available to the finalists of the FIDE World Cup, but of course that’s nothing that Magnus Carlsen needs to worry about. Others have objected, just as they did, for instance, when Magnus and Fabiano Caruana both played the 2019 FIDE Grand Swiss.

Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Giri discussed that topic on Hikaru’s Twitch channel recently and reflected that the FIDE Grand Prix was likely to become the main way for the top players to try and qualify for the Candidates – since its limited field and multiple events reduces the element of randomness, while already qualified players, such as Magnus Carlsen or whoever has qualified before Spring 2022, will be excluded.

In Sochi, the World Champion can target the $110,000 top prize, as well as getting some practice playing classical over-the-board chess in the run-up to the World Championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi in Dubai in November.

There’s also the sheer challenge – the World Cup is a rare event that Magnus has never won. As a 15-year-old he was beaten in the Last 16 by Evgeny Bareev in 2005, and two years later he lost to Gata Kamsky in the semi-finals. Then there was a decade-long break before, already the World Champion, he crashed out to Bu Xiangzhi in Round 3 of the 2017 World Cup in Tbilisi.

Magnus, who played his 2014 World Championship match against Vishy Anand in Sochi, is no stranger to the area.

Round 1 begins on Monday, July 12th, with 156 players competing in 78 matches. A classical game will be played on each of the first two days, and, if tied, the players come back for tiebreaks on the third. The tiebreaks are first two 25+10 games, then, if needed, two 10+10, then two 5+3, and then finally an Armageddon game. One twist this time round is that the final and 3rd place matches also consist of only two classical games, not the previous four.

The other twist is that the big guns, the Top 50 seeds, only join from Round 2, which with 128 players and 64 matches is equivalent to Round 1 of previous World Cups. That’s when Magnus will join the party.

Who’s playing? Actually, it’s easier to say who isn’t, with the following qualifiers not taking part:

• Ian Nepomniachtchi (replaced by Harikrishna)
• Wesley So (replaced by Vidit)
• Richard Rapport (replaced by Alexander Areschenko)
• Wang Hao (replaced by Bu Xiangzhi)
• Viswanathan Anand (replaced by Wei Yi)
• Evgeny Shtembuliak (the U20 World Champion – replaced by Zoltan Almasi)
• Ju Wenjun (replaced by Dmitry Jakovenko)

As you can tell, it’s an incredibly strong line-up. At stake is an almost $1.9 million prize fund, while the gruelling tournament will only definitely be over by August 6th, the day on which we could potentially get tiebreaks in the final matches. Alongside the open event there will also be the Women’s World Cup with 103 players. Hou Yifan and Humpy Konery don’t play, but Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun does.

The pairings were due to be announced today, but with federations struggling to confirm participants the regulations were changed to allow the pairings to be published 20 days rather than a month before the event begins. We may well see more players drop out with the pandemic complicating travel everywhere, but it’s sure to an enthralling month of chess!

See also:

• Official website

Levon Aronian needed just two games and under an hour and a half of play to clinch victory over Vladislav Artemiev and take the $30,000 top prize in the Goldmoney Asian Rapid. Levon’s spectacular final win was a fitting end to an event where he’d also won the Preliminary stage, to take home the maximum number of tour points. The fight for 3rd place was also one-sided, but with a twist. Ding Liren hit back to win the second day’s rapid chess 3:0 before Magnus Carlsen took over in blitz to clinch the match.

Levon Aronian is set to switch to the United States Chess Federation after the FIDE World Cup, so it was appropriate that he won his first event on the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour on US Independence Day. Magnus Carlsen would later joke when asked if he was happy for his friend.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the Goldmoney Asian Rapid and will stick around for all the other chess action coming up!

See also:

• Champions Chess Tour website
• All the Goldmoney Asian Rapid games with computer analysis: Prelims, Knockout
• Hou Yifan joins Magnus Carlsen for Goldmoney Asian Rapid
• Carlsen starts Goldmoney Asian Rapid against Firouzja, Hou Yifan & So
• Goldmoney Asian Rapid Day 1: Carlsen hits back after Firouzja stumble
• Goldmoney Asian Rapid Day 2: Aronian and Ding lead
• Goldmoney Asian Rapid Day 3: Aronian triumphs, faces 17-year-old Erigaisi
• Goldmoney Asian Rapid Day 4: Carlsen & Artemiev lead
• Goldmoney Asian Rapid Day 5: Carlsen & Aronian scrape into semis after playoffs
• Goldmoney Asian Rapid Day 6: Carlsen & Ding strike
• Goldmoney Asian Rapid Day 7: Aronian & Artemiev stun Carlsen & Ding
• Goldmoney Asian Rapid Day 8: Aronian leads final

The leading competition within the event Bilbao Chess in July 9th, will host the only duel between the reigning world chess champion, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, and the official challenger to the title, the Russian Serguéi Kariakin, before they meet again in New York next November in a fight for the universal title.

Thanks to this world exclusive encounter, Bilbao and its Grand Slam Masters Final is one of the top events in this year’s international chess calendar, along with the individual World Championship.

Bilbao’s international status as a chess capital will be further boosted by the strongest competitive line-up in recent years. The reigning and twice world champion Carlsen and his Russian challenger (a status which has been fully merited by Kariakin after his recent win at the Candidates Tournament in Moscow, in which he defeated the rest of the world’s elite, including the champion Anand), will be joined by the winner of last year’s event, the American of Philippine origin Wesley So, Anish Giri, the Dutch grand master who was defeated by the latter in the 2015 tie-break and the American of Japanese origin Hikaru Nakamura, all of whom are ranked among the top ten in the world, who will also fight to win the Masters Final prestigious txapela.

And alongside these well-renowned young grand masters, who are all in their twenties, the rising star of world chess: Yi Wei, the 16-year-old Chinese teenager, who is already the Olympic and absolute champion in his country, the sport’s new world power.

Thanks to the renewed support of the Bilbao City Council and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, alongside other public and corporate sponsors, the 9th Chess Masters Final, a tournament which is part of the event Bilbao Chess 2016, returns to its original format of six players. It will take place between 13 and 23 July, and the Campos Elíseos Theatre will once again host the tournament for the second consecutive year, after last year’s success.

Located in the centre of the theatre’s seating area, known as “La Bombonera” of Bilbao, which has been converted and prepared for the event, in an unusual image for international chess tournaments, the Masters Final will be surrounded by approximately 140 competitors, professionals and enthusiasts, who will all fight for victory at one of the most compelling open tournaments taking place this year in the city, the 9th Villa de Bilbao Open.
Source
www.bilbaochess2016.com