Berlin wins popular vote; will host the Grand Prix Series and other events in 2022
August 12, 2021 — Berlin, the capital of Germany, will be the main host of the 2022 Grand Prix Series. The Series, a part of the World Chess Championship circuit, will run from February to April in a bespoke-designed chess arena. The city was chosen by World Chess, the gaming company that organizes the Series in partnership with FIDE, as well as by chess fans from around the world. In a survey conducted over two weeks, chess players, organizers and federations were asked to suggest a city to host the prestigious series, and Berlin emerged as a clear favourite with 16 percent of the total votes. The runners-up were Sao Paulo and London. In total, over 4000 people took part in the survey. Throughout the two weeks, chess lovers got the chance to cast a vote for their favourite chess city. According to the organizers, such an enthusiastic response was a little unexpected but is in line with the growing popularity of chess both online and offline. The popular vote marks an important point in chess history because, for the first time, the global chess community was actively involved in the process of deciding on a new chess capital, and Berlin is indeed a worthy choice. The sport is very popular in the city: according to a YouGov study, 23% of the population plays chess regularly. Ilya Merenzon, CEO of World Chess says “Chess in Berlin has a lot of history and Berlin has a lot of love for the game, and we are looking forward not only to bringing 3 months of top-level chess here but also to establishing a permanent home for one of the most popular games”. Arkady Dvorkovich, the FIDE President, says: “FIDE continues to support and bring top-level chess to the world’s cities. Chess in Berlin is a part of the culture, and we are thrilled that the city and the whole of Europe will have an opportunity not only to follow the games online but also the see them life, even in these challenging times”. Ullrich Krause, President of the German Chess Federation: “We are pleased that the organizers are bringing the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 to Germany! And as we know from the 2018 Candidates Tournament, Berlin is the perfect city for a world-class event of this kind: a chess-loving international audience meets excellent and interesting venues. The German Chess Federation and World Chess will make these 45 days of Grand Prix a true chess festival with activities throughout the city”. The Series will feature 24 players, each of whom will compete in two out of three tournaments. Each event will consist of a group stage and then a knockout round. In the group stage, each group will play a round-robin six-round tournament. The system has been improved based on feedback from the chess community regarding the number of classical games: there are six classical games in the first round of each competition. This further reduces the chance of random results and ensures that players with consistently high scores advance to the next stage. The prize fund for each event is EUR 150,000 , which is a EUR 20,000 increase from 2019. The design theme of the Series will be ‘Time to Say Berlin’. The slogan is a play on the now-famous tweet by World Champion Magnus Carlsen’ Time to Say Dubai’ once he learned the name of his challenger in the FIDE World Chess Championship which is due to take place in Dubai in November. The Berlin Grand Prix Series marks the beginning of a new cycle. The design of the Series represents the main characters and archetypes of Berlin and is supplemented by the chessboard and graffiti-style bespoke typeface. The Series consists of three events, each featuring 16 players. Each event consists of a group stage and a knockout. The events are planned to take place in Berlin. However, FIDE may propose a supplementary city with excellent transportation links with Berlin for one out of three events. The FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022 is supported by the following leading global companies: Algorand as the Official Blockchain Partner Kaspersky as the Official Cybersecurity Partner For further questions, please contact: media@worldchess.com Official website: https://worldchess.com/news/ About World Chess: World Chess is a London-based chess gaming and entertainment group and FIDE’ official broadcaster and commercial partner. World Chess organized the FIDE Championship Matches in Russia, the USA, and the UK, and revolutionized the sport by signing the biggest media partnerships in history. World Chess develops Armageddon, the chess league for prime-time television. World Chess also runs FIDE Online Arena, the exclusive official chess gaming platform. More at worldchess.com. About Algorand: Algorand is building the technology to power the Future of Finance (FutureFi), the convergence of traditional and decentralized models into a unified system that is inclusive, frictionless, and secure. Founded by Turing Award-winning cryptographerSilvio Micali, Algorand developed a blockchain infrastructure that offers the interoperability and capacity to handle the volume of transactions needed for defi, financial institutions and governments to smoothly transition into FutureFi. The technology of choice for more than 700 global organizations, Algorand is enabling the simple creation of next generation financial products, protocols and exchange of value. For more information, visit www.algorand.com. About Kaspersky: Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company founded in 1997. Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky technologies and we help 240,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.
2021 STL Rapid & Blitz: Day 1 Recap
The Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz kicked off with an exciting mix of blunders, brilliancies, and plenty of decisive outcomes. After three rounds, American grandmasters Fabiano Caruana and Leinier Dominguez lead the field with 5 out of 6 points. Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura trail close behind with 4 points. In the rapid portion, a win is worth 2 points, a draw is 1 point, and a loss is 0. Round 1 The first round of the tournament began with two victories as Richard Rapport (pictured below) and Leinier Dominguez made quick work of their opponents. Rapport reached a winning position after just 14 moves against GM Sam Shankland after the American grandmaster made a costly tactical oversight. Rapport pounced on the opportunity to sacrifice a piece for the overwhelming initiative. The final position featured a rare material imbalance in which Rapport’s 5 extra pawns completely overpowered Shankland’s minor piece. Meanwhile, Dominguez played an immaculate positional game against Jeffery Xiong. Although the game featured a relatively mild-looking Italian Opening with an early queen trade, Dominguez acquired a dominant grip on Black’s queenside weaknesses, causing Xiong’s position to crumble quite rapidly. Round 2 The second round featured another two decisive results, with grandmasters Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Fabiano Caruana (pictured below) joining the top of the standings. For those chess fans who truly despise the London Opening (known for it’s extremely solid and annoying nature), here is some good news: Fabiano completely dismantled Liem Le‘s London is a highly instructive game. The American number 1 unleashed some hypnotic knight manoeuvres leading to a clear middlegame edge. By move 21, Caruana achieved a strong outpost in white’s territory and gradually transformed his advantage into a winning endgame. For the staunch London Opening supporters (including yours truly), we will have to dig hard to find some improvement against Caruana’s super-grandmaster preparation. The matchup between Peter Svidler and Mamedyarov produced the most shocking twist of the day. For much of the game, the Russian grandmaster displayed extraordinary tactical vision in a complex position to achieve a decisive advantage. According to Maurice Ashley, Svidler was playing “BOSS CHESS.” However, in an unexpected turn of events, Svidler froze up in time trouble and ended up flagging to give Mamedyarov the victory. Check out a short clip of the game’s climax on the Grand Chess Tour’s Twitter feed. Round 3 In the final round of the day, all heck broke loose… decisive outcomes EVERYWHERE! Hikaru Nakamura (pictured above), wearing his iconic pineapple shirt, earned his first victory of the event by beating Svidler while he was still down. Jeffery Xiong committed a one-move blunder in the early middlegame to give his compatriot Caruana another victory. Mamedyarov got wiped off the board in just 23 moves with white after his off-beat opening completely backfired against Le. Wesley So outclassed Sam Shankland’s Slav in a one-sided beatdown. In the last game to end, Leinier Dominguez (pictured below) displayed exceptional technique against Rapport to secure another victory and join Caruana for the lead. The 2021 Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz coverage continues today, August 12 at 2:50 PM CDT, with live commentaries by GM’s Yasser Seirawan, Alejandro Ramirez, and Maurice Ashley on grandchesstour.org. Watch all the action live on grandchesstour.org and Kasparovchess.com Text: IM Eric Rosen Photos: Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour and Spectrum Studios. Credits available on Flickr. Further Information: Web: GrandChessTour.org | Twitter: @GrandChessTourInstagram: @GrandChessTour | Facebook: @GrandChessTour#GrandChessTour#STLRapidBlitz Venue: Saint Louis Chess Club, USAAugust 10- August 16, 2021 Press Contact:press@grandchesstour.org Livestream:Grandchesstour.orgKasparovchess.com