Round 2 Game 2: Fighting chess at the World Cup
Aronian withdraws from the second round due to health reasons Friday, July 16th, 2021 – The second game of round two at the World Cup began this afternoon with a huge absence: world’s number 5 player, GM Levon Aronian, decided to withdraw from the event due to health reasons. As a result, his opponent GM Bobby Cheng advanced directly to the third round. Aronian took to social media to explain his decision: Cheng was kind enough to pop-in to the press centre to give us his thoughts on the match with Aronian and his upcoming third-round encounter. At 3 pm sharp, Fight Night MMA promoter Kamil Gadzhiev played the first move for GM Magnus Carlsen on Board 1, clearly a prelude of what the round was eventually going to bring. Although some matches went to the tiebreak, most players came to the Galaxy Center with a clear idea in mind: fight until the end to seal the deal. The World Champion, who won the first game of the two yesterday with Black, displayed once again his fantastic technique grinding down his opponent in a tricky knight vs bishop endgame with an equal number of pawns. Although it was probably a draw at some point, these endings are generally quite tricky and GM Sasa Martinovic blundered first with 53…Bh6 (53…Kd7 giving up the pawn is a draw even a pawn down), and then 54…axb5? which is definitely losing. The computer holds the endgame with 54…Kd7 but it’s not easy at all for a human player. Carlsen will now face GM Aryan Tari in the third round, in a match between Norway’s top two players. One of the first games to finish was GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s win over GM Elshan Moradiabadi. As the first game ended in a draw, the world-class French player needed a win to advance to the next round. In a fine positional game, Maxime took advantage of a few small mistakes in his opponent’s set-up. After 13…Nb6 (instead of …Ne7) Moradiabadi was already under serious pressure, and the nice manoeuvre 15.Bf4! e5 16.Be3 secured the d5 square for White. A few moves later Black’s position crumbled. Maxime was kind enough to explain his thought process in a brief postgame interview. Other favourites to qualify directly to the third round are GM’s Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk (pictured below), Anish Giri and Sergei Karjakin, while top players Mamedyarov, Firouzja, or Lenier Dominguez among others will have to return tomorrow for the tie-breaks. In the women’s group, most of the rating favourites advanced to the third round by scoring an on-demand win today after their first game draw in the match. Pre-event top-seed GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (2596) scored a clear 2-0 against WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova and advanced to the third round, while second seed Kateryna Lagno (2558) also qualified by defeating WIM Teodora Injac by 1.5-0.5. Both of them will face strong +2400 opponents in their next games. Also qualifying to the third round was top-rated Russian GM Alina Kashlinskaya, who defeated Cuba’s IM Lisandra Ordaz in a fine positional game. It seemed that Ordaz, with Black, had equalised after the opening, but she lashed out with the thematic pawn-lever 13… c5? at the wrong moment. Kashlinskaya captured the d-pawn and went on to grind down her opponent in a technical ending with an extra exchange. In her post-game interview, Alina gave us her thoughts on the game and her upcoming third-round challenge with WGM Alisa Galliamova, who is also from Russia. One of the best games of the afternoon in the women’s group was played by GM Alexandra Kosteniuk who defeated her second-round opponent WGM Deysi Cori in a wonderful ending. Although an exchange down, Kosteniuk manoeuvred her two bishops and created a passed center pawn. Her opponent was powerless, unable to stop detain the advance of the pawn, while Kosteniuk used her bishops and active king to block the long-distance attacks by Cori’s lone rook. A great display of technique! Kosteniuk gave us her thoughts in the post-game interview. Unfortunately, both of the Indonesian players, Medina Warda Aulia and Irine Kharisma Sukandar, although feeling well and having had negative testing, decided to withdraw from the second round as a safety measure with regard to the rest of the players. As a result, their opponents, GM Harika Dronavalli from India and GM Valentina Gunina from Russia, also advanced directly to the third round. Pairings of the second round tiebreaks, to be played tomorrow afternoon, 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”
Chess.com acquires broadcast rights for major FIDE events through 2023
Chess.com is the first official broadcast partner of the Women’s World Chess Championship cycle and the 2022 Women’s World Chess Championship as part of a historic multi-year agreement with the International Chess Federation (FIDE). FIDE is hosting the first-ever Women’s World Cup with the best female players competing for a $676,250 prize fund. This agreement underscores Chess.com’s commitment towards growing, supporting, and strengthening strong chess talent within the female chess community. “We’re more excited than ever about highlighting the talent in top-level women’s chess,” said Chief Chess Officer Danny Rensch. “The Women’s Speed Chess Championship was awesome and featured the highest-ever prize fund for a women’s online competition, and we’re thrilled to partner with FIDE to help shed a spotlight on the biggest stages of women’s chess.” The agreement includes broadcast rights for all major FIDE events in which GMs Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and other chess celebrities will compete head-to-head for prize pools in the millions of dollars. Confirmed guest commentators on Chess.com’s broadcasts of these events include five-time former world champion GM Viswanathan Anand, 2018 World Championship Challenger and world number two Fabiano Caruana, GM Robert Hess, and GM Daniel Naroditsky. The FIDE deal means that in addition to the Women’s World Championship, Chess.com’s broadcast coverage will include live player cams for the FIDE World Cup, the Chess Olympiad, the 2023 World Chess Championship, the World Rapid & Blitz Championships, and more. Chess.com had previously acquired the broadcast rights for the 2022 Candidates tournament and was the first company to acquire broadcast rights for the 2021 FIDE World Championship Match. These broadcasts will include streams in the French, German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, and Turkish languages. “FIDE is excited about this new agreement,” said FIDE Director-General Emil Sutovsky. “Its scope ensures a wider exposure for our official events, and in particular we are happy to partner with Chess.com to promote the best women chess players. It is the first time the rights for top women competitions are getting acquired, and we are genuinely proud that the vision championed by FIDE is getting shared by a major online platform. We spare no effort to constantly improve the coverage of our events, making it accessible for both hardcore chess fans and players who just discover the magic of the game. Our partnership with Chess.com will take this experience to a new height, and we are committed to making it distinctively special,” Sutovsky said. Chess.com has become the top global chess broadcaster through its channels on Chess.com/TV, Twitch, and YouTube. Earlier this year, Chess.com’s PogChamps influencer chess tournament reached 28 million live views among the highly coveted 18-34 advertiser demographic. The peak concurrent viewership in the chess category reached 375,000 making chess one of the Top 10 most popular games on Twitch during that time. “We have been, and continue to be, incredibly proud to support women’s chess in all ways,” said Austin Gasparini, Chess.com’s Director of Business Development. “From increasing the prize fund of this year’s 2021 FIDE Chess.com Women’s Speed Chess Championship to be the richest online women’s chess prize fund in history, to striking this historic deal with FIDE to cover all of the most critical women’s tournaments in professional chess, Chess.com is dedicated to growing the game for players and fans equally around the world. We look forward to innovating and investing in our chess coverage to maximize women’s visibility and participation in the sport in the coming years.” Chess.com has hired 5x sports Emmy award winner Alex Brewer as Director of Programming to support the growing popularity in chess entertainment. Formerly an associate manager at ESPN, Brewer’s career spanned content creation and production operations roles working on key company priorities such as ESPN+, College Gameday, and SportsCenter. Before his departure, he worked within ESPN’s Programming and Acquisitions group, specifically supporting original content creation for ESPN+ and 30 for 30 brands. At Chess.com, Brewer will oversee the day-to-day operations of chess programming and oversee the production of a wide range of events for a growing audience of fans worldwide. “My mission now shifts from a career in sports media to the amazing world of chess, where I will strive to support this great community with the best content and events possible.” About Chess.com Founded in 2005, Chess.com is the world’s largest chess site and leader in chess news, lessons, events, and entertainment. Nearly 10 million chess games are played on the site every day. Visit Chess.com to play, learn, and connect with chess—the world’s most popular game. Media Contact: Laura NystromPublic Relations Managerpress@chess.com
Severino and Mendoza win Asian Chess Championship for Players with Disabilities
FM Sander Severino and Cheyzer Crystal Mendoza, both of the Philippines, won the Asian Chess Championship for Players with Disabilities (Open and Women, respectively) held from 9-11 July on Tornelo platform. You can replay the games on https://live.followchess.com/#!asian-disabled-online-chp-2021. Sander Severino (pictured above) tied with compatriot Henry Lopez but took gold thanks to slightly better tiebreaks. Cheyzer Crystal Mendoza Mendoza finished clear first with 5 points in 5 rounds winning all her games. FIDE Disabled Commission Chairman GM Thomas Luther attended the event and complemented Asia for being the only Continent to hold championships for disabled players. Asian Chess Federation (ACF) General Secretary Hisham Al Taher pointed out that Asian Chess Federation signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Asian Paralympic Committee and the ACF is coordinating the 2022 Asian Para Games chess which will be held in Hangzhou, China. Official website: asianchess.com/