José Carlos Vaz crowned Cape Verde Champion
The VII Individual Absolute Championship of Cape Verde, a 10-player round-robin event, took place at the Jorge Barbosa Municipal Library in Espargos on the island of Sal. Nine men and one woman competed for the prestigious title of Cape Verdean Chess Champion. It was clear from the outset that a new champion would emerge, as the defending champion, IM Mariano Ortega, did not participate due to professional commitments. With Cape Verde’s top two players on the FIDE rating list missing, the tournament carried high expectations. Adding to the excitement, the country’s third-ranked player was participating in a national competition for the first time. The tournament was fiercely contested, with the top seed suffering his first defeat early on. By Round 3, every participant had experienced at least one loss. In the end, José Carlos Vaz, making his debut in the national championship, emerged victorious. Fresh off earning his Candidate Master norm at the recent Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Vaz scored an impressive 7.5 points out of 9. His only loss came against CM David Mirulla, who finished third, while he drew against runner-up Diogo Neves and defeated the rest of the field. Notably, Deise Pereira, the only woman in the tournament, who achieved WCM title in Budapest, finished fourth with 5 points. The event concluded with a closing ceremony led by a representative from the Institute of Sport and Youth, the government body responsible for overseeing sports and youth activities in Cape Verde. Final standings: 1 CM Vaz, Jose Carlos 1923 7½ 2 Neves, Diogo 1755 6½ 3 CM Mirulla, David 1893 6 4 WCM Pereira, Deise 1692 5 5 Barros, Luis 1776 4 6 Santos, Steven 1945 4 7 Lopes, Ruben 1550 4 8 Soares, Carlos 1654 3½ 9 Moes, Carlos 1678 2½ 10 Delgado, Luis 1638 2 Text and photos: Cape Verdean Chess Federation
FIDE World Rapid and Blitz in New York preview: An epic ending to 2024
As the clock ticks down to 2025, the best players in the world will descend on Wall Street for the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships In a year that marked the International Chess Federation’s centenary, celebrated the 45th Chess Olympiad, and witnessed an intense battle for the World Championship title, 2024 will conclude with a fitting and extraordinary finale: the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships in New York City. Thanks to sponsorship from NASDAQ-listed Freedom Holding, New York’s financial district will host the event from December 26–31. Top Grandmasters from around the globe will compete in this much-anticipated tournament, traditionally held in the final week of the year. Famous for its chess hustlers, important tournaments from the 1920s and the historic Marshall Chess Club, New York has been chosen as the venue for one of the biggest and most popular elite chess events on the planet, watched by millions worldwide. Here’s everything you need to know about the 2024 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships. Star Players This year’s event features an all-star lineup of over 300 players in both the Open and Women’s categories. Among them are current and former world champions in various time control formats, continental and Olympic medal winners, and elite Grandmasters from all corners of the globe. The Open competition is headlined by the five-time World Champion in classical chess and current number one in the world rating list – Magnus Carlsen. The Norwegian superstar holds the Rapid and the Blitz crowns and altogether has six Blitz and five Rapid Championship titles. Carlsen will be facing a large field of challengers, led by world number two and three, Americans Fabiano Caruana (current U.S. champion and former World Championship contender) and Hikaru Nakamura, a five-time U.S. champion and one of the most dominant blitz players in chess history. Despite focusing more on streaming where he became the world’s most popular chess content creator, Nakamura remains at the top, as one of the greatest players of all time. Adding the pressure on the Norwegian will be the 21-year-old Iranian-born Frenchman, Alireza Firouza, who has this year solidified his status as one of the most formidable players challenging Carlsen’s dominance. The field will also see former world championship title contenders as well as previous Blitz and Rapid Championship winners take part, including Ian Nepomniachtchi, Boris Gelfand, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alexander Grischuk. Many of the top-U.S. Grandmasters are also playing, including Olympic team members Wesley So, Levon Aronian, and Leinier Dominguez Perez. Unlike the dominance asserted by Carlsen in the Open competition, the Women’s Rapid and Blitz are renowned for their unpredictability. China’s world champion Ju Wenjun leads the field in the women’s competition, which includes former and current world champions in different formats, including Alexandra Kosteniuk, Bibisara Assaubayeva, Valentina Gunina and Kateryna Lagno. Top U.S. players at the event are Alice Lee, as well as current U.S. champion Carissa Yip and former champion Irina Krush. The format and the stakes The total prize fund is just shy of $1.5 million, spread across the Rapid and the Blitz. The event will open with the three-day FIDE World Rapid Championships, from 26 to 29 December. There will be 13 rounds in the Open and 11 rounds for the Women’s section. Each player will start with 15 minutes on the clock and get a 10-second increment per move. There will be no penalties for players arriving late to the game, but their time will keep ticking from the start of the round. The Blitz follows with two thrilling days of high-speed action on December 30 and 31, featuring a new – two-stage – format in both the Open and Women’s competitions. On the first day, the Open tournament will feature 13 rounds, while the Women’s tournament will have 11 rounds. The time control will be three minutes plus a 2-second increment per move. On the second day, December 31, the top 8 players from each competition will face off in a knockout finale. The Wall Street Gambit Between the FIDE Rapid and the Blitz Championships, on December 29, FIDE and the sponsor Freedom Holding are organizing the Wall Street Gambit conference, which will explore the links between chess and finance. Chess grandees Magnus Carlsen, Vishwanathan Anand and Fabiano Caruana will join leading figures from the financial world, including Boaz Weinstein, D. Sculley, and Kenneth Rogoff. The day will begin with a chess tournament for the conference participants, followed by keynote speeches from some of the most influential names in chess, finance and AI, who will explore the connection between the black-and-white game and investing. D. Sculley, CEO of Kaggle, will deliver a keynote titled “Predicting in the Face of Incomplete Knowledge: Chess, Finance, and Other Challenges for AI.” Kenneth Rogoff, the former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund and chess grandmaster, will speak on the topic “Chess, AI, and Economics”. Iconic venues Both the Open and the Women’s tournaments will take place at renowned New York venues, just a few steps away from the NYSE. The Open Rapid and Blitz tournaments will be held at Cipriani Wall Street, an iconic landmark built in 1841 and once the home of the New York Stock Exchange. The Women’s tournaments will be held at 48 Wall Street, a historic building that once housed the Bank of New York & Trust Company Building and the Museum of American Finance. “A milestone for chess” With its renowned international tournaments of 1924 and 1927, the Manhattan Chess Club and the historic Marshall Club, New York have an important place in the history and development of chess in the U.S. Now, a new page in chess history is being written in New York, as the forthcoming FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships will be the strongest tournament ever played on U.S. soil. This edition of the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz pays homage to the deep connection between chess and the Big Apple, capping a year filled with some of the most significant events