Last year Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura played an unofficial fischer random chess world championship match in Norway. It was broadcasted on the state broadcaster NRK and was a surprising success. With the new leadership of FIDE and teaming up with Chess.com this year FIDE started an official world championship cycle to crown another chess world champion. Until now the qualifying process have been held online on the Chess.com , but as we now as we have reached the semifinals the rest of the games will be played live in Norway. Here’s a short summary of what is in store for chess fans the coming week;
The Players
In the end it was Ian Nepomniatchi, Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana who qualified for the semifinals with Carlsen seeded straight into the semifinals. To be frank the online qualifying did seem pretty erratic and difficult to follow for the average fan. Hopefully this will be a success and grow as an event so things will be streamlined in the future. The decision to have Carlsen directly enter the semifinal also seems too friendly a system. Maybe reasonable considering his position and the hosts being Norwegians, but still not especially fair. In the future I hope this Fischer Random goes more in the way of Rapid and Blitz world titles than defending champion like classical chess.
It is a very strong field. there are no official Fischer rating, but we the current world #1, 2, 7 & 12, so no easy matches and players that deserve such a shot at a world champion title. Unofficial champion Carlsen is most likely the favourite, with Caruana a close second. The Opening ceremony was held on Saturday and we get the favourites facing off already in the semi finals as the matches were drawn as Carlsen vs Caruana and Nepomniatchi vs So. It will be interesting to see if Nepos usually fast playing style would thrive in this format.
Schedule and time control
The semi finals are played over three days (Oct 27-29) followed by a rest day on Oct 30 and a 3 day final (and bronze final). The event is held at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Bærum outside of Oslo, Norway
Day 1: 2 slow rapid games will be played. Each player gets 45 minutes for 40 first moves, then 15 minutes for rest of game. No increment. A win is worth 3 points
Day 2: 2 slow rapid games will be played. Each player gets 45 minutes for 40 first moves, then 15 minutes for rest of game. No increment. A win is worth 3 points
Day 3: 4 fast rapid games will be payed. Each player gets 15 minutes with a 2 sec increment. A win is worth 2 points. The players then play 4 blitz games, with a time control of 3 minutes and a 2 sec increment. Each blitz win is worth 1 point.
The player with the most points after three days advance to the final. In case of a tie an Armageddon game will be played, 5 min vs 4 min with white in a must-win situation.
The schedule is repeated for the final and bronze finale (Oct 31 – Nov 2). On Sunday the games begin at 17:00 (local time) with the rest of the week games beginning at 17:30 (local time). First prize is $125 000, second $75 000, third $50 000 and fourth $40 000.
Special rules for the event
These games will be played as Fischer Random chess games, and for those of you who doesn’t know what Fischer Random Chess is I suggest checking wikipedia for the basic details. This variant of chess is also known as Chess960. It was originally conceived by Fischer (hence the name) and is played mostly as normal chess, but the starting position is randomly decided before a game (following certain rules). There are 960 different starting positions in the game and that means much of the typical chess opening theory is not applicable in Fischer Random Chess.
For those that followed the match between Carlsen and Nakamura the format is mostly unchanged from last year. 15 min before the first game of the day a computer program draws the opening position that will be used for each pair of games (with players changing colour between game 1 and 2). If the draw is the standard starting position the position is redrawn. The players then have these 15 minutes to confer with a second and prepare for that particular opening position. Carlsen and Nakamura were pleased if they had a concrete plan the first 2 moves so except the opposite of usual chess games with most of the time used for the first few moves and then playing gradually faster as the games progress more in line of familiar chess games. Players get a 30 min break between the slow rapid games. The repeat position in game 2 is also interesting, will the player repeat moves from the first game or find new (and better?) plans?
Players will also be wearing heart rate monitors which the commentators and the audience can follow throughout the games. This was also used during last year’s match (some glitches, but a somewhat interesting feature). There will also be a confession booth players can use during the game to comment on the game (as seen in other events like the Grand Chess Tour and Norway Chess).
For Norwegian fans the event will be broadcasted on NRK but for the international audience you can follow the games on www.chess.com/tv and www.twitch.com/chess
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