Magnus Carlsen, the worldwide No 1, stars on Wall Avenue this weekend because the Norwegian, 34, defends his World Fast and Blitz crowns in New York towards a bunch of bold US and worldwide challengers.
The sector of 182 for the World Fast/Blitz contains 30 Individuals and the USA’s world Nos 2 and three, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, are certain to be outstanding, with France’s Alireza Firouzja, Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and India’s Arjun Erigaisi main the brand new technology. China has the highest three seeds within the Ladies’s World Fast/Blitz, which has 113 entries. The whole prize fund is $1m for the open Fast and Blitz, with $428,500 for the 2 girls’s occasions.
In Thursday’s first spherical of the Fast, Carlsen was held to a draw by Awonder Liang, 21, among the best younger US grandmasters, however in spherical two, he overwhelmed his Bosnian opponent.
This would be the first time that the favored pace world championships have been staged on American soil, not to mention on the epicentre of worldwide finance. Fast is outlined as quarter-hour per participant per sport, plus an increment of 10 seconds a transfer from transfer one, whereas Blitz is three minutes per participant per sport, plus a two seconds per transfer increment.
Carlsen has already gained 5 world rapids and 7 world blitzes in his illustrious profession, and captured each titles in 2022 and 2023. The listing of his lifetime victories is impressively lengthy, and underlines the duty forward for the brand new classical world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, because the Indian 18-year-old, who isn’t competing in New York, goals to match the Norwegian’s achievements.
Carlsen’s chess curriculum vitae above lists 64 main titles, all however 9 of them over the board. Gukesh up to now has simply six – one world championship, one Candidates, three Olympiad golds, and one Fide Circuit, albeit with a 16-year age benefit.
Fast is now Carlsen’s favorite format, and he scored once more in final week’s Champions Tour, the place most occasions have been held on-line whereas the eight-player closing pool was staged throughout the board in Oslo.
It ended up with a closing between Carlsen and his outdated rival Ian Nepomniachtchi, who he defeated of their 2021 world title match, the place their 136-move sixth sport was the longest in world championship historical past. This time there was a a lot quicker consequence, as Carlsen gained 4-1 together with a 23-move crush within the closing sport.
Carlsen is all the time alert to new developments, and his 7 a3 repeated Gukesh’s novelty towards Ding Liren from sport 13 of the Fide world title match in Singapore, a drawn encounter the place {the teenager} ignored a win.
Nepomniachtchi various from Ding by early castling, however he missed the facility of the rook raise 17 Rh3! That is an historic and robust technique towards the French, which I recall the shock of experiencing as Black at London 1948 towards Oliver Penrose. Right here, White’s assault on the king shortly proved the irrelevance of the Russian queen tour on the alternative flank, and Carlsen’s closing 23 Qg6! created the unanswerable risk of Ng5 and Qh7 mate.
A serious risk to Carlsen in New York is prone to be the various bold Individuals who’re nicely conscious of their nation’s robust historic document in pace occasions. The primary fashionable US champion Samuel Reshevsky, and his up to date, Reuben Wonderful, have been each expert blitz gamers, whereas Bobby Fischer gained an unofficial world blitz championship in 1970 forward of the Soviet elite. In recent times the favored streamer Nakamura has been Carlsen’s close to equal in quick play.
The World Fast began on Thursday, and continues at 7pm GMT on Friday and Saturday. You may watch free, with grandmaster and laptop commentary and assessments, on lichess.org and different main chess websites.
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In between the three-day, 13-round Fast on 26-28 December and the two-day Blitz on 30-31 December, Fide has organised the Wall Avenue Gambit, a convention to discover the fusion between chess and finance.
Its spotlight shall be a keynote deal with by the famend economist and GM Kenneth Rogoff, who will communicate on chess, AI, and economics. Carlsen. Caruana, and India’s former world champion Vishy Anand shall be current. Customary tickets price $1,000, whereas VIP tickets at $5,000, which embody a blitz sport and selfies with Carlsen, are already offered out.
No UK gamers have travelled to the World Fast/Blitz because of the excessive price and the low probabilities of a prize. For England’s consultants, the annual £10,000 Caplin Hastings Masters from 28 December to five January is the occasion of the second. Greater than 100 entries vary from a minimum of seven 2500+ grandmasters to a protracted tail the place over half the sphere are rated under 2000.
England’s youngest ever GM, 15-year-old Shreyas Royal, is the highest dwelling seed, whereas a probable candidate for a world title is 21-year-old FM Alex Golding, who already has two IM norms and a 2400+ score and has simply gained the standard Richmond pre-Christmas blitz at Orleans Park College from an entry of over 100.
3952: 1 Nh6+ Kf8 2 Nf5! (risk 3 Rh8 mate) g6 3 Qh6+ Kg8 4 Qh7+ Kf8 5 Qh8+! Bxh8 6 Rxh8 mate. Black can sacrifice his bishops and queen at g2 and f2, however this solely delays mate.
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