The Longest Yard

Luckily for Caïssa’s worshipers, there are only a few weeks left before the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship 2020 will take place in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Ural Federal District, Russia from March 15, 2020 to April 5, 2020. There’s no need to be Nostradamus to query the Elo-ranking list and predict a two-horse race between Fabiano Caruana and 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén). In fact, statistically speaking, they are the favourites. But, as Lennon says, “life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans”, and there are indeed too many incognita to make any forecast reliable. First, the Russian “dark horses” — in primis, Ian Alexandrovich Nepomniachtchi, who only a few days ago got a sponsorship from PhosAgro with the express purpose of helping him to take the King’s crown back to Russia. Furthermore, the novel coronavirus emergency, with its hysterical montage of the most decadent Blade Runner scenes, might seriously upset 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén), who might be asked to come to Russia within next Thursday, and then undergo a two-week quarantine in Moscow. Gens una sumus, but only to a certain extent.