Next month, from June 10 to 15, many of the global chess elite will visit London for the €500,000 Fide World Rapid and Blitz Team Championship. As is increasingly the case, the games will be speedy, but the quality of the competition and the strong local involvement will still make for highly interesting viewing.
Some teams will represent nations or cities, others are ad hoc groupings, but it is the number and calibre of the individual competitors that catches the eye. The venue will be the Novotel London West hotel, Hammersmith, where the playing venue can accommodate up to 60 six-player teams, which must each include at least one female, plus one amateur who has never been rated above 2000.
Neither Magnus Carlsen nor the reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju will be there, because the London event comes too soon for them after the finish of Norway Chess on June 6. Instead, the former world champions Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik will be at Hammersmith, along with the current world Nos 2 and 4, Hikaru Nakamura and Arjun Erigaisi. Another rare sighting will be China’s Hou Yifan, the all-time No 2 woman after Judit Polgar, who takes a break from her academic career to compete in the tournament.
For home fans, a highlight will be Nigel Short’s first appearance for eight years at an English competitive event. The 1993 world title challenger will be top board for the team of Fide, where he is director for development and visits new potential member countries.
Short is now aged 59, but showed in last month’s Bangkok Open that he retains much of his former skills. The Fide World Rapid and Blitz Teams include several English squads with young talent, for whom a meeting with the legend will be inspirational.
Before the Fide team championship, the chess calendar has two major tournaments which can affect the balance of power at the top. On Wednesday May 7, the Superbet Chess Classic Romania starts in Bucharest, with world top 11 players Gukesh, Fabiano Caruana, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Alireza Firouzja and Wesley So all in action.
Bucharest will be followed by Norway Chess at Stavanger, starting on May 26, where the six competitors in a double-round all-play-all are Carlsen (Norway), Nakamura and Caruana (US), Gukesh and Erigaisi (India) and Wei Yi (China).
These two contests will be particularly significant for the reputation of Gukesh, the 18-year-old who last year captured the world crown from China’s Ding Liren in Singapore. The teenager, who turns 19 on May 29, failed badly in last month’s Freestyle Chess event in Paris where Carlsen scored nine out of nine.
Indian commentators argue that, for Gukesh, the Freestyle events, where the placing of the back rank pieces are randomised, is not of major importance and that only his results in classical tournaments really matter. However, sub-par achievements by the Indian star in Bucharest, and especially in the showdown with Carlsen in Stavanger, would further highlight Gukesh’s previous poor performances.
Besides Gukesh, all the Stavanger competitors will have an individual motivation. Carlsen will want to show continued classical supremacy, a strong Nakamura result will provide impetus for him to qualify for the 2026 Candidates, Caruana will aim to restore his previous No 2 status, while Erigaisi and Wei Yi will try to confirm their places among the super-elite.
Puzzle 2623
Mikhail Tal v Friðrik Ólafsson, Las Palmas 1975. Black to move and win.
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