Carlsen and Praggnanandhaa share FTX Crypto Cup lead
Magnus Carlsen and Indian star Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa made it two wins out of two today as the FTX Crypto Cup favourites powered into an early lead. The World Champion recovered from a shock loss against American teenager Hans Niemann to march into Round 3 of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour round-robin. Pragg, meanwhile, narrowly beat Anish Giri to avenge a costly defeat the Dutch number 1 inflicted on him earlier this year in the Oslo Esports Cup. Carlsen’s day started badly as he was simply blown away by Niemann, the lowest rated player in the tournament. Niemann, coming off a 3-0 loss yesterday, was super-smooth with the black pieces. The killer move was 35… Be4, which caused havoc in Carlsen’s defence and ended Niemann’s tilt. In his post-game comment, Niemann summarised his win enigmatically by simply saying: “Chess speaks for itself.” But Carlsen doesn’t just roll over. Game 2 saw the world number 1 hit back in ruthless style to level the score at 1-1. Then in the third game, Carlsen sprung another opening surprise with the dubious 1. a3, played for the first time on the Tour, before moving into a more orthodox queen’s pawn opening. The Norwegian has previously played 1. e3 and 1. f3 – all highly unorthodox moves. Carlsen quickly went a pawn up and secured a beneficial queen trade before turning the screw against his 19-year-old opponent to take the win and go 2-1 up. Niemann now needed to win the next game on demand. He battled hard, but could not hold back the tide. Carlsen won the final game – despite missing a chance to win a piece – to take the match 3-1. Carlsen said after: “I didn’t play so great, but I’m very happy with the fact I came back.” Alireza Firouzja, the French-registered superstar-in-the-making, brushed off his loss yesterday to get his first campaign this season under way with a superb 2.5-0.5 win over Liem Le. Firouzja clinched victory with a game to spare, picking up $7,500 and 3pts. Vietnam’s top player, meanwhile, has now lost two matches in a row. The final two matches to finish were less clear. Pragg and Giri played out three draws before Pragg struck in the final game. The youngster sits alongside Carlsen at the top of the leaderboard on 6/6pts. Tomorrow Pragg plays Niemann while Giri, still yet to get off the mark, faces Firouzja. The last match to finish, Jan-Krzysztof Duda vs Levon Aronian, became the first of the tournament to go to tiebreaks after a tight encounter between two of the Tour big beasts ended 2-2. Aronian missed an opportunity to take the lead in the first blitz tiebreak, which ended in a draw. But the Armenian-born US star made no mistake in the second to take the match win. He now sits one point behind Carlsen and Pragg on 5 points. Round 3 of the round-robin event starts at 12:00 ET (18:00 CEST). Each match will be played over four rapid games, with blitz tiebreaks in case of a 2:2 draw. All the action will be broadcast on chess24 with a choice of commentary from our Oslo team of David Howell, Jovanka Houska and Kaja Snare, or from Peter Leko and Tania Sachdev. For further comments contact: Leon Watson, Head of PR, Play Magnus Groupleon@chessable.com+447786078770 About the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour The Champions Chess Tour is the leading online chess Tour worldwide determining the world’s best chess player over a full competitive season of online chess. The 2022 season begins in February 2022 and features monthly tournaments culminating in a Final in November 2022. The best chess players in the world are competing in rapid chess. All games take place online on www.chess24.com with players competing for a total prize pool of over USD 1.5 million. For more information visit www.chess24.com/tour.
FIDE Book Awards 2022: Call for nominations
Dear Publishers and Authors, The FIDE Trainers’ Commission invites your nominations for the Yuri Averbakh & Isaac Boleslavsky Book Awards 2022. There will be a total of three awards, Gold, Silver and Bronze, and both the publisher and author will be acknowledged. Eligible are chess books (print) published in 2021. Publishers may submit up to three books, while authors may submit one book directly for consideration by the judges. Submissions must be emailed to trainers@fide.com, with a deadline of 31 August 2022. Once confirmed, we will advise where three copies of the books should be sent for the judges to review. Three prominent chess personalities have already agreed to be the judges, and each one of them will vote independently to create a shortlist no later than the end of October 2022. Then, they will deliberate and agree together on the three final awardees, with the winner being announced no later than two weeks after the publication of the shortlist. Thank you, Peter LongCoordinator for FIDE Book Awards 2022
Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners: Registration continues
From 13-14 October 2022, FIDE, jointly with Cook County (Chicago) Sheriff’s office, will host the second Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners. Dedicated to the International Day of Education in Prison, the event is organized as a part of the Chess for Freedom programme. Free and open to players representing any correctional facility without specification by age and gender of prisoners, the tournament aims at introducing chess as a tool for education and social inclusion in prisons of different countries. 24 teams from 17 countries – Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, Germany, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Norway, Philippines, Serbia, Turks and Caicos Islands and the USA – have already registered for the competition. In some countries, national and regional chess tournaments for prisoners are being held to define the strongest players that will represent their countries on the international level. Others have chess training for inmates to improve their online and offline chess skills. Alongside the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai, India organized a national online inter-jail chess tournament among 21 jails of the country, where a four-member team of Choudwar Circle Jail beat Gujarat’s Baroda jail in the final. Later, the champion team participated in the friendly international online jail chess tournament organized by FIDE on chess.com platform on August 2, where Choudwar Circle Jail defeated Chicago Prison, USA, by a score of 3-1. “We have further extended training and practice of the champion team of Choudwar Jail to make them ready for participating in the Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for prisoners,” said chess trainer Satya Ranjan Patnaik. 21 jails across India, including Choudwar Circle Jail, are providing chess training to inmates as a part of Parivartan – Prison to Pride initiative launched by Indian Oil Corporation Limited. The four-member team was formed from prisoners who excelled in playing offline and online chess. “We are proud of our team for defeating the much experienced Chicago Jail team and expecting the best performance in the upcoming Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for prisoners,” said Choudwar Circle Jail Superintendent Pradipta Kumar Behera. The Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for prisoners is open for teams of four players representing any correctional facility. Each country can have up to three teams for the event: the main team representing a female correctional facility with all four female team players and a team representing a juvenile correctional facility (under the age of 20). The registration deadline is September 21, 2022. Participation is free of charge. Tournament regulations (pdf) Registration form