Cinemas are closed. Shutters are down on malls. Stadia are empty. Coronavirus has pressed the pause button on the world.
Every day dawns with the news of the cancellation or postponement of a major sporting event. On Tuesday in Russia though, one of the biggest tournaments of the year in chess will get underway. The Candidates tournament opens at Yekaterinburg, which boasts some of the tallest buildings in Russia.
Three weeks of action
The next three weeks will tell who, from among the eight players, will stand the tallest and stake the claim to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the next World Championship, to be held later in the year.
For the uninitiated, the World chess champion has the privilege of playing the title match directly – a bit like the Wimbledon champion getting seeded straight to the final. That has usually been the custom in chess for decades.
So it is indeed extremely difficult for someone to emerge as the new champion.
In the 134-year-history of the championship, there have only been 16 undisputed champions.
Carlsen became the 16th when he dethroned Viswanathan Anand in 2013 in the latter’s hometown of Chennai.
In late 2018 at London, the Norwegian genius was given a tough fight in the title match by Fabiano Caruana.
The match was tied 6-6 and it was through the tie-breakers that Carlsen emeged victorious. Caruana is very much the favourite to be the challenger once again.
Watch out for Liren
The Italian-American is the World No. 2, with 2842 Elo points. He could face the stiffest challenge from Ding Laren, the World No. 3 from China with a rating of 2805.
Russians Alexander Grischuk (2777), Ian Nepomniachtchi (2774) and Kirill Alekseenko (2698), Dutchman Anish Giri (2763), France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2767) and China’s Wang Hao (2762) are the others in the fray.
“I think Caruana is too strong for this field,” says Mumbai-based Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay. “As he proved in the last World Championship, he could pose the toughest challenge to Carlsen.”
Caruana’s toughest challenge at Yekaterinburg could come from Liren. He had arrived, along with his team, from China (the epicentre of Corona) and had been in quarantine.
Not that every chess player wanted to take on Corona and play at the Candidates. Teimour Radjabov of Azerjaiban had pulled out and had requested the world chess governing body FIDE to postpone the tournament (he was replaced by Vachier-Lagrave).
Caruana had found his flight to Russia was cancelled without notice but was able to board another later. FIDE was in no mood to change the schedule of the Candidates, stating that an eight-player tournament could not be compared to a large event.
Anand’s new role
One can follow the tournament live online and on chess.com , one can listen to the commentary of Anand, who is stuck in Germany, after competing in the Bundesliga chess league, because of travel restrictions.
The five-time World Champion is making his debut as a commentator. Given his deep knowledge, experience, the ability to analyse quickly, articulation and sense of humour, he should be a treat to listen to.
