Four nations, China, India, Russia and Ukraine, chess behemoths of the 21st century that impacted the world in their distinctive ways, have qualified to contest the semi-final of the elite Women’s World Championship in Tehran, Iran.
The failure of the Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) to engineer a national chess championship during 2016 was excruciating to those persons who qualified for the tournament, and markedly embarrassing for those who are in tune with the game.
At the conclusion of the sixth round of the elite London Chess Classic tournament (on Thursday), which opened on December 9 and ends today, US grandmaster Wesley So maintained the lead in a field which boasts eight of the world’s top ten chess players.
Last week’s column mentioned that this year’s World Championship 12th game of classical chess between Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin under standard time controls did not compare favourably to the 1985 World Championship 24th and final game of the Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov match.
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all.
The FIDE World Chess Championship match between the current world champion and Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen and his Russian challenger Sergey Karjakin begins on Friday in Manhattan, New York.
The South American grandmaster from Paraguay, Axel Bachmann (2645), was confident as he faced the lad from India during the final round of the competitive Isle of Man International Chess Tournament last Sunday.