Friday, January 12, 2024

Another Word for Chess

From February 9–16, the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort in Wangels on the Baltic Sea, Germany, will host a super-tournament of Fischerandom chess (a.k.a. chess960) named “Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge”, featuring the participation of Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Levon Grigori Aronian, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén), Alireza Firouzja, Dommaraju Gukesh, and Vincent Keymer. The format is a best of two games knockout at a classical time control, with rapid tie-breaks if required.
“Carlsen has always wanted to play 9LX at slower classical time rates rather than rapid, and calls the event ‘a dream come true’”, writes Leonard Barden in his The Guardian column. “He is taking it very seriously, even to the extent of missing Wijk aan Zee for the first time for a decade so as to prepare for 9LX”.

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