C30 Zonals Indexed

After identifying qualification events in C30 Zonals (January 2022), I added the required data to the index of World Chess Championship Zonals. In a similar exercise for the previous cycle, C29 Zonals Indexed (November 2019), I noted, 'The 28 new events make a total of 469 events recorded on the index.' The same calculation this time yields:-

The 18 new events make a total of 487 events recorded on the index.

The drop in the number of new events from 28 to 18 is, of course, a result of the covid pandemic which has swept the world during the last two years. The following chart shows the evolution in the number of events during the last five cycles, where each cycle took two years to complete.

C26: 2012-13, ... C30: 2020-21

The left column is the continent number -- '1' (= Europe), etc. -- where I use '0' for events not tied to a specific continent. In this chart, the count for continent '0' means the ACP Tour. It was undoubtedly suspended because of the pandemic, although I could find nothing official on the ACP's site Chessprofessionals.org.

All continents showed a drop in the number of events from C29 to C30. The drop for '2' (= Americas) was likely even more severe than the numbers show, because the C30 count includes three zones for which I could find almost no info. I'll look more closely into those for a future post.

At one point last year I wasn't sure if the cycle would go forward. I documented this in a pair of posts:-

• 2021-03-31: A New Cycle Is Struggling to Survive
• 2021-06-02: A New Cycle Is Coping Nicely

That second post mentions Tornelo, which I documented in another post on my main blog:-

• 2021-06-13: The Tornelo Online Platform

Tornelo was used in eight of the 15 events that I know took place (18 - 3). Three more events were played using other online platforms, meaning that just four events were played in a traditional face-to-face venue.

2021 Grand Swiss PGN and Player Indices

As planned in two recent posts -- 2021 Grand Swiss Crosstables (November 2021), and 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Crosstable & PGN (December 2021) -- I finally finished related updates for the three events.

For the two Grand Swiss events, I added the PGN and updated both indices of players, unrestricted events and women's events. The links for all updated resources are in the 'Crosstables' post. At the same time I updated the index of players for the Carlsen - Nepo match.

Of 108 players in the unrestricted Grand Swiss, 17 were new to the index (although two still require an additional verification step). Of the 50 players in the Women's Grand Swiss, eight were new to the women's index.

The second half of 2021 was a busy period for the World Championship, with two cycles in full swing. FIDE has announced some plans for 2022, which will be the subject of a future post.

2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Crosstable & PGN

Looks like I jumped the gun on last week's post 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Wrapup, (December 2021). Before writing it I should have added the crosstable and PGN to the page, 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi; Dubai, XI-XII, 2021 (m-w.com). Done and done.

Now I'll have to update the 'Wrapup' post to include this current post. At the same time I can add the most recent post on my main blog, A Trio of World Championship Video Makers (December 2021).

As for adding the Carlsen - Nepo match to the World Chess Championship : Index of Players, the 'Wrapup' post had a list of actions...

What to do tackle next on this blog? I have open actions from two series of posts started before the match.

...where one of them was to update the same 'Index of Players'. To be done (next year!)...

2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Wrapup

With this post we bid farewell to the recent World Championship match, following a series of posts on this blog under the heading '2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi'.

• 2021-11-24: Warmup
• 2021-12-01: First Week
• 2021-12-08: Second Week
• 2021-12-15: Third Week

Because I spent less time following the match than I did with previous matches, I had fewer posts on my main blog. I could find only three.

• 2021-11-28: World Championship Social Media 2021
• 2021-11-30: World Championship Yahoos 2021
• 2021-12-12: A Flood of World Championship Videos

Given GM Nepomniachtchi's performance, it's unlikely that we'll see him back for another match against Carlsen. This is a good time to document a series of posts from earlier this year, also on my main blog.

• 2021-05-28: Carlsen's 2021 Challenger
• 2021-06-04: Nepo's TWIC Debut
• 2021-06-11: Nepo as a 'Young Star'
• 2021-06-19: Nepo at the World Cup
• 2021-06-25: Nepo Interviews

What to do tackle next on this blog? I have open actions from two series of posts started before the match.

• 2021-10-27: C30 Regulations for World Cup Qualifiers
• 2021-11-17: 2021 Grand Swiss Crosstables • 'Still to do is add the PGN to the same pages and update the corresponding player indices:-

It might have been premature to 'bid farewell' to the match. For example, I still haven't tackled the material in the 'Flood of Videos' post. Then there's the little matter mentioned in the 'Third Week' post -- World Champion Carlsen might decline to play any further matches unless the conditions suit him.

That stance, trying to dictate the rules for subsequent matches, follows a long tradition established by previous World Champions. Several of the pre-FIDE champions were guilty of arranging the cards in their favor. It continued with Botvinnik, the first FIDE champion, then later with Fischer and Kasparov. I thought this had been settled with Kasparov, who ultimately accepted that the title belongs to FIDE. The world federation, not the champion, sets the rules.

With Carlsen there is the additional complication that he has profited from branding his name through the 'Play Magnus' company, using it to acquire other companies involved in chess. I gave an outline in Carlsen's TMER 2019-21, Chess24 (November 2021). Now he has shareholders who might not be so thrilled that he risks damaging his own brand.

Yesterday GM Carlsen expressed his position in writing: Dubai Expo FIDE World Championship Match (svw.no; 'Written by Magnus Carlsen').

I have by now played against the previous generation and three leading players of my generation. Being result-oriented has worked out for me in these matches, but it doesn’t feel sustainable long term. Passion must be the main driver. It is unlikely that I will play another match unless maybe if the next challenger represents the next generation.

Will the next title match be held in 2022 or 2023? The FIDE calendar (fide.com) currently lists 'FIDE Candidates Tournament 2022', without being more specific, and has no entry for the next World Championship. Whatever happens, there promises to be plenty of drama for Magnus Carlsen's many fans.

2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, the Third Week

I started and finished last week's post 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, the Second Week (December 2021), with:-

It ain't over 'til it's over, but it's over. The score is now +3-0=6 with five games to be played. [...] If one of the top American chess journalists [the New York Times' former chess columnist Dylan Loeb McClain] thought the match 'may have been decided already' after two wins for Carlsen, what can we say after three wins? It's over...

*It*, being the 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi match in Dubai (m-w.com), continued for another two games : a draw and a win for Carlsen with the Black pieces. A score of +4-0=7 with three games left to be played was the most convincing, crushing victory in World Champion Carlsen's five title matches. Continuing with the 'Second Week' post, let's reference the last official reports titled 'FIDE World Championship 2021' from Fide.com:-

• 2021-12-08: A change in mindset? [fide.com; g.10; 'Jonathan Tisdall, Press Officer']
• 2021-12-10: Magnus Carlsen wins his fifth consecutive world title match [ditto; g.11]
• 2021-12-12: Crowned again [ditto; closing ceremony]

Let's also not overlook the last Youtube videos in the series 'FIDE World Championship Match - NBC Recap Game':-

• 2021-12-10: NBC Recap Game 9
• 2021-12-10: NBC Recap Game 10
• 2021-12-12: NBC Recap Game 11

Post-match, Carlsen dropped a bombshell piece of news. In an earlier post in this series, The First Week (December 2021), I referenced a couple of stories from Sean Ingle of The Guardian. His take on the latest news was Magnus Carlsen may opt against world chess defence due to lack of motivation (theguardian.com; December 2021), subtitled:-

Carlsen retained world championship title in Dubai • "It doesn’t mean as much any more as it once did" • Magnus Carlsen insists he has other priorities outside of the world championship.

What happens if Carlsen declines to play? The rules for the Dubai match, 'Regulations for the FIDE World Championship Match 2021', said,

2. Participation [...] 2.2. If the World Champion or the Challenger withdraws for any reason, he is replaced by the runner-up of the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2020.

Assuming that rule remains in effect, the participants in the next Candidates Tournament might be playing for *both* places in the subsequent World Championship match. The Guardian story mentioned,

The 31-year-old [Carlsen] said the only thing likely to persuade him to keep defending his title would be if his next opponent was the brilliant 18-year-old Alireza Firouzja, who recently broke Carlsen’s record as the youngest 2800-rated player and is now ranked world No 2.

Firouzja qualified for the Candidates event in last month's 2021 Grand Swiss (m-w.com) held in Riga. No one can accuse Carlsen of avoiding a tough challenge. Maybe he's just setting the stage for a nail-biting Candidates Tournament.

2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, the Second Week

It ain't over 'til it's over, but it's over -- the 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi in Dubai, that is. I started last week's post, 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, the First Week (December 2021), with an observation:-

The first four games of the match all ended in draws.

The fifth game was also a draw, then World Champion Magnus Carlsen won three of the next four games (g.6/8/9), conceding a single draw to the challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi. The score is now +3-0=6 with five games to be played. For the game-by-game action, let's turn again to press reports Fide.com, all under the heading 'FIDE World Championship Dubai 2021'.

• 2021-12-01: More than meets the eye (fide.com; g.5; 'Jonathan Tisdall, Press Officer')
• 2021-12-03: Are we there yet? (ditto, as are further game reports; g.6)
• 2021-12-04: Back to the grind (g.7)
• 2021-12-05: Something from nothing (g.8)
• 2021-12-07: Hindsight is not enough (g.9) • 'Carlsen has only lost a total of two games in world title matches since his successful challenge versus holder Vishwanathan Anand in 2013. Dubai is the Norwegian's fifth title match.'

And here are the latest Youtube videos titled 'FIDE World Championship Match - NBC Recap Game':-

• 2021-12-02: NBC Recap Game 4
• 2021-12-02: NBC Recap Game 5
• 2021-12-05: NBC Recap Game 6
• 2021-12-06: NBC Recap Game 7
• 2021-12-07: NBC Recap Game 8

On my main blog I've been running a monthly series on chess in the mainstream news, nicknamed 'Yahoos' (don't ask why). The most recent post in the series was World Championship Yahoos 2021 (November 2021). One of the angles I'll be watching for the next post, end-December, will be coverage of the Dubai World Championship. After the 2020-21 chess boom powered by the covid pandemic and Netflix, wa should see considerably more interest than for other recent matches.

In the meantime, curious about coverage of the match, I checked Google News to see what it considers the top stories on the match. Here's what I recorded as sources for the current top-10:-

• 3 x chess.com
• 3 x theguardian.com
• 1 x nytimes.com
• 1 x essentiallysports.com
• 1 x chess24.com
• 1 x chessbase.com

Because the top-10 news stories change constantly, the list is dynamic. The first source and the last two sources -- with 'chess' in their names -- would nevertheless figure on most lists. The second and third sources -- theguardian.com and nytimes.com -- have been covering world class chess for years. Only one source -- essentiallysports.com -- was not familiar to me; for more of its stories, see Latest Chess Updates | Essentially Sports.

The New York Times story, Did the World Chess Championship End When No One Was Looking?, by the NYT's former chess columnist Dylan Loeb McClain, started,

The world chess championship currently underway in Dubai is not over officially, but for all intents and purposes it may have been decided already. After a string of five draws to begin the championship, Magnus Carlsen, the reigning champion from Norway, has won two of the last three games, to take a lead of five points to three over his challenger, Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.

If one of the top American chess journalists thought the match 'may have been decided already' after two wins for Carlsen, what can we say after three wins? It's over...

2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, the First Week

'The first four games of the match all ended in draws.' That's how I opened my report three years ago for 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, the First Week (November 2018), and it works just as well in 2021 as it did in 2018. I continued the 2018 report with a summary of the first week of previous World Chess Championship title matches.

Of the seven most recent matches, all with 12 games at standard time control, the first three (2006, 2008, 2010) saw the eventual winner jump into the lead after four games. The last four saw a tied score after four games, where only one (2014) had decisive games. The other three matches started with six consecutive draws (2012), four draws (2013), and seven draws (2016).

Let's add to that list 'twelve consecutive draws (2018)'. Yes, the most recent World Championship match, 2018 Carlsen - Caruana (London), had all 12 regulation games end in draws. I doubt that the current contest, 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi (Dubai), will suffer the same fate, but with the players so evenly matched, who can say for sure?

In the previous post on the current match, 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Warmup (November 2021), I started keeping track of articles emanating from Fide.com. I'll continue that method of summarizing the events of the first week, all under the title 'FIDE World Championship Dubai 2021':-

• 2021-11-24: The first skirmish (fide.com; opening press conference; 'Jonathan Tisdall, Press Officer']
• 2021-11-25: Catching up and final preparations (ditto; opening ceremony)
• 2021-11-26: The battle begins (ditto, as are further game reports; g.1)
• 2021-11-27: The champion's turn (g.2)
• 2021-11-28: Armed and informed (g.3)
• 2021-11-30: Closing window (g.4)

On my main blog I posted a look at World Championship Social Media 2021 (November 2021). One of the highlights was a Youtube video from the FIDE chess channel under the title 'FIDE World Championship Match - NBC Recap Game'. Here are links to the first three games covered by NBC:-

• 2021-11-28: NBC Recap Game 1
• 2021-11-29: NBC Recap Game 2
• 2021-11-30: NBC Recap Game 3

There's much more non-NBC video material available on the 'FIDE chess' channel. For more info on the source of those three listed videos, NBC Sports, see that post, 'WCC Social Media 2021'. Another post on my main blog, World Championship Yahoos 2021 (November 2021), introduced another mainstream resource, The Guardian:-

That last story, by 'Sean Ingle in Dubai', looks like continuing coverage of the Carlsen - Nepo match. In each of the last few World Championship matches, I've discovered at least one professional, non-chess journalist who provided an outsider's view of the match. Will the Guardian continue the trend?

I learned from the writer's page, Sean Ingle | The Guardian, that he 'is the Guardian's chief sports reporter', which means he probably doesn't have the time to cover a niche match that lasts three weeks. While I fully expect the highly respected Guardian to provide continuing coverage, it might be from their other writers, like the legendary Leonard Barden. Here are two of Sean Ingle's pre-match reports:-

• 2021-11-24: Inside the mind of Magnus Carlsen: ‘I am happy to win in any way possible’ • 'Magnus Carlsen is the highest-rated chess player of all time but admits his upcoming world championship match does not excite him. The world champion shares his motivational struggles before an intriguing showdown with his old rival Ian Nepomniachtchi.'
• 2021-11-25: Will Nepo’s supercomputer give him world chess title edge over Carlsen? • '[The] challenger has one of Russia’s fastest supercomputers on his side but his Norwegian opponent remains the warm favourite. Ian Nepomniachtchi has a strong record against Magnus Carlsen, a rival he first came across when the pair were 12.'

It's curious that the address of that first story, 'Inside the Mind', uses a different headline than that which appears on its page. Was there a problem with the original? -- 'Magnus Carlsen: The big advantage is that I am the better chess player'. It's unusual to get that sort of edgy reporting from professional chess journalists, but it makes for interesting stories.

2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Warmup

Today is the opening ceremony for the 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi (m-w.com) World Championship title match at Dubai. Because of the covid confinements and the Netflix series 'The Queen's Gambit', chess has seen a spike in popularity since the previous title match, which I followed three years ago on this blog:-

• 2018-11-07: 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, Warmup • Plus links to seven previous World Championship events also covered on this blog.
• 2018-12-12: 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, Wrapup

The Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi match, originally scheduled for a year ago, might well turn out to be the most widely followed match in chess history. As a final preparation for the match I updated that page on m-w.com, where the main change was a link to FIDE's own site. It looks like this:-

Official Site:-

fideworldchampionship.com

The m-w.com page has a dozen links to FIDE announcements, which must be a record for my pages and which attests to the organizational difficulties encountered by FIDE over the past two years, again because of the covid-19 coronavirus. One of those dozen links published the schedule for the match, reproduced here:-

No need to memorize that chart. The games will be played on the weekend -- Friday, Saturday, and Sunday -- plus Tuesday and Wednesday during the week. The other two days of the week are 'Free Days'. The small print on the bottom right of the chart says, 'Games start at 16:30 GST | 12:30 UTC'. If you're like me, 'GST' and 'UTC' don't mean much, so here's a useful link to understand that in local time:-

• Time in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (timeanddate.com/worldclock)

I could have added a few more pages to the dozen links already referenced on m-w.com. Instead, I'll start to document them on this blog. The two most recent are:-

• 2021-11-21: FIDE World Championship Dubai 2021: 10 facts about opponents (fide.com) • 'With the FIDE World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi around the corner it is time to know the reigning champion and the challenger a bit better.'
• 2021-11-23: FIDE World Championship Dubai 2021: Preview (ditto) • 'A special sense of occasion; The odds; The X factors; Showing up; Swings and stamina; Game? Sport? Art? Science?; Chess is ...'

That second page, the 'Preview', is curious. It mentions the first person pronouns 'I' and 'me', but is anonymous. The same writeup on the official site, A Special Sense of Occasion (fideworldchampionship.com), is also anonymous. Oversight or intentional, with so many sites scrambling to cover the match, why should the official site not trumpet its own sources?

There's so much more I could say about the match, but I'll stop here. Chances are that it's already been said a dozen times in a dozen other places.

Upcoming World Championship Events

After finally finishing with the most recent events in the World Championship, as documented in 2021 World Cup Wrapup (October 2021), it's time to move on to future events. One of the posts in the World Cup series, 2021 Women's World Cup Crosstables (September 2021), laid down a small follow-up plan:-

After that, I'll catch up with the latest news for two upcoming events:-
* 2021 Grand Swiss; 25 Oct - 8 Nov, and
* 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi; 24 Nov - 16 Dec

I identified recent announcements from Fide.com and updated two of my pages (both m-w.com):-

• 2021 Grand Swiss; Riga (Latvia), X-XI, 2021
• 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi; Dubai, XI-XII, 2021

I also noted some changes required to bring the pages behind World Championship for Women up to date. I'll tackle those for my next post.

While looking for relevant info, I noticed two different banners for the Grand Swiss events, shown below. The first banner appears to have been discarded in favor of the second, which is the model for the logo shown at the top of this post.

Yekaterinburg Candidates - Wrapup

It's finally time to terminate the interminable. Here's a summary of the posts -- mainly from this blog -- stemming from the recently concluded Yekaterinburg Candidates. Let's start with the posts from the first half of the tournament.

• 2020-03-18: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Kickoff
• 2020-03-25: Yekaterinburg Candidates - First Week
• 2020-04-01: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Second Week • 'There was no second week'
• 2020-04-08: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Intermezzo
• 2020-04-15: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Video Commentary

During this time, there was only one post on my main blog:-

• 2020-03-31: Coronavirus Candidates • 'With every major sports event getting cancelled or postponed this month, you might think the Candidates tournament would have attracted considerable attention from mainstream sports broadcasting ... and you would be wrong.'

For the previous Candidates tournament, the summary Berlin Candidates - Wrapup (April 2018) listed 15 posts on my main blog. Why the big difference? Because the following year I announced, 'The End of Daily Blogging' (September 2019).

After the first half was of the Yekaterinburg Candidates was played, there was a long hiatus before the second half started. Of course, no one could know how long it would be.

• 2020-08-12: Yekaterinburg Candidates - 1st Half Crosstable
• 2020-08-19: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Players
• 2020-09-16: Yekaterinburg Candidates - 2nd Half Announced • FIDE: 'The 8th round has been scheduled for 1 November 2020.'
• 2020-10-14: 'Tournir of the FIDE Applicants' • Chess-news.ru: 'FIDE is still considering two locations for the game - Yekaterinburg and Tbilisi'
• 2020-10-21: FIDE Candidates Postponed Again
• 2020-10-28: Interview with Dvorkovich
• 2021-03-03: FIDE Candidates Tournament, Final Chapter? • FIDE: 'FIDE plans to resume...'

That last FIDE announcement finally hit the right note.

• 2021-04-21: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Third Week
• 2021-04-28: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Fourth Week
• 2021-05-05: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Cumulative Score
• 2021-05-12: Yekaterinburg Candidates - Last Updates?

Next stop: 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi; Dubai, XI-XII, 2021.

Yekaterinburg Candidates - Last Updates?

To my page:-

• 2020 Candidates Tournament; Yekaterinburg (Russia)

I added the PGN and crosstable for the second half of the tournament, plus the chart from last week's post Yekaterinburg Candidates - Cumulative Score (May 2021). Then I added Nepomniachtchi's name, as challenger, plus other relevant info to the pages:-

• World Chess Championship Index
• 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi

I also added recent announcements from Fide.com to the same pages where appropriate. Then I ran out of time. To be continued?

Yekaterinburg Candidates - Cumulative Score

My first action after last week's post, Yekaterinburg Candidates - Fourth Week (April 2021; 'Congratulations to GM Nepomniachtchi on a well deserved victory'), was to gather the PGN for the second half of the tournament. Combining that with the PGN for the first half let me calculate the cumulative score, shown below.

The red line separates the two halves of the tournament, where the second half was played more than a year after the first. As soon as I get a chance, I'll add that image -- plus the PGN and crosstable for the second half -- to my page 2020 Candidates Tournament; Yekaterinburg (Russia).

The cumulative score continues a pattern I've noted several times on this blog. The previous mention was Yekaterinburg Candidates - First Week (March 2020):-

The eventual winner was from the group of players who had a plus score after round 3. The winner was also one of the leaders after the first half of the tournament.

That makes five consecutive candidate tournaments showing the same pattern. What are the odds?

Yekaterinburg Candidates - Fourth Week

After waiting more than a year for the continuation of the 2020 Candidates Tournament, Yekaterinburg, the whole affair was over in a little over a week. Unfortunately for me, after last week's post Yekaterinburg Candidates - Third Week (April 2021), I didn't find the time to watch a single minute of the action. To compensate, I collected the following links from two of the most respected chess news sources.

Rd.	Chess.com	Chessbase.com
R08	Well-Prepared Caruana Moves Up As MVL Stumbles In Endgame	Caruana impresses, wins marathon [with links to rds.1-7]
R09	Giri Strikes, Moves Into Second-Place Tie?	Giri wins, climbs to shared second place
R10	Nepomniachtchi Wins Quickly, Increases Lead	Nepomniachtchi widens the gap
R11	Giri Approaches Nepomniachtchi, MVL Stumbles	Giri in sole second place after brilliant win
R12	Four Winners, Nepomniachtchi Maintains Lead	Nepo wins to keep the lead as Giri beats Caruana
R13	Nepomniachtchi Wins FIDE Candidates Tournamen1 day	Nepomniachtchi to challenge Carlsen for the World Championship title
R14	Three Winners In Final Round, Wang Hao Announces Retirement	Ding, MVL and Alekseenko finish on a high note

Congratulations to GM Nepomniachtchi on a well deserved victory. Another article on Chess.com, published just before the second half of the tournament started, is worth noting: FIDE Candidates: Karjakin Names Nepomniachtchi As Most Difficult Opponent For Carlsen (Peter Doggers). Over the next few weeks, I'll add the finishing touches to my own online record of the event.

Yekaterinburg Candidates - Third Week

In writing this post, I had two problems to solve. My first problem was what to title it. In the previous post, Yekaterinburg Candidates - Second Week (April 2020, a full year ago), I wrote,

This might become one of the shortest blog posts I've ever written. After last week's post, Yekaterinburg Candidates - First Week, there was no second week.

I decided to keep the title ordinally simple: First Week, Second Week, Third Week. Next week's post will be titled ... no prize for a correct guess.

My second problem was what to write about. The first round of the restarted second half finished yesterday, so there's not much new material to work with. Let's just say that the continuation of the event is finally underway -- there were no further postponements or delays. On top of that, all of the players arrived safely -- there were no last minute cancellations. Those points are both noteworthy, in and of themselves.

Once again, like for 'Second Week', that's not much of a post. Fortunately, I have a backup idea. A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Eric van Reem telling me that he had released a couple of podcasts about the Candidates tournament, with a third podcast on the way. Last year I became familiar with Eric's work thanks to my chess960 blog; see The Norwegian Connection (November 2020), for his two part chat with GM Jonathan Tisdall (which covers much more than chess960). The three more recent podcasts are well worth a listen:-

• 2021-03-30 #26 Lennart Ootes, 'Let's talk about the Candidates Tournament and photography'
• 2021-04-06 #27 Leontxo García, 'Let's talk about your escape from Yekaterinburg'
• 2021-04-18 #28 Douglas Griffin, 'Let's talk about chess history' [with an emphasis on past candidates tournaments]

Each of those podcasts links to the full index of all 28 podcasts. That's guaranteed to provide some entertainment between rounds of the tournament. What will podcast #29 bring?

A New Cycle Is Struggling to Survive

It's been two years since FIDE restructured its World Championship qualifiers, as I documented in FIDE Starts the New Cycle (May 2019; 'I added three new pages to my site for the World Chess Championship'), meaning it's time to start the next cycle. Although the coronavirus pandemic has played havoc with tournament plans, the FIDE Calendar shows that many qualifying events are already scheduled. The following table gives an overview of those events.

Source: FIDE Calendar
[World Events 2021]
Candidates Tournaments	Yekaterinburg, Russia	19 Apr	28 Apr
FIDE World Cup	Sochi, Russia	10 Jul	03 Aug
FIDE Women's World Cup 2021	Sochi, Russia	10 Jul	06 Aug
FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss 2021	Isle of Man	25 Oct	08 Nov
FIDE World Chess Championship	Dubai, UAE	24 Nov	16 Dec
[Europe]
European Hybrid Qualification event for the FIDE World Cup	Online	22 May	30 May
[Americas]
('No Data')
[Asia]
Asian Continental Open Chess Championship	Hybrid	20 May	30 May
Zone 3.1 Zonal Open Championship	Hybrid	01 Jun	09 Jun
Zone 3.2 Zonal Open Championship	Dhaka, Bangladesh	01 Jun	09 Jun
Zone 3.3 Zonal Open Championship	Hybrid	01 May	10 May
Zone 3.4 Zonal Open Championship	Tashkent, Uzbekistan	06 May	15 May
Zone 3.7 Zonal Open Championship	India	2021	2021
[Africa]
2021 African Online World Cup Pre-Qualifying Chess Championship	Tornelo Platform	23 Apr	02 May
African Individual Chess Championship 2021 (Open & Women)	Lilongwe, Malawi	17 May	28 May
Zone 4.1 Individual Chess Championship 2021 (Open & Women)	Algiers, Algeria	29 Oct	06 Nov
Zone 4.2 Individual Chess Championship 2021 (Open & Women)	Lomé, Togo	03 Sep	11 Sep
Zone 4.3 Individual Chess Championship 2021 (Open & Women)	Libreville, Gabon	01 Oct	09 Oct
Zone 4.4 Individual Chess Championship 2021 (Open & Women)	Kigali, Rwanda	27 Aug	04 Sep
Zone 4.5 Individual Chess Championship 2021 (Open & Women)	Maseru, Lesotho	05 Nov	13 Nov

[World Events 2021] - My most recent posts on these subjects were:-

• 2021-03-03: Candidates Tournament, Final Chapter?
• 2021-02-01: Expo 2020 Dubai (in 2021); WCC

[Europe] - See also European hybrid qualification tournament for the FIDE World Cup (chessbase.com), which starts,

The European Hybrid Qualification Tournament for the FIDE World Cup will take place on May 22-30 and will be played Online as a hybrid event. 36 players will qualify for the FIDE World Cup 2021. The event will be played under a knock-out system with matches consisting of 2 standard games plus tiebreaks if needed.

[Americas] - The calendar section of the FIDE America site returns an error message: '404 Error : Article not found'. A recent page, Participants in the World Cup, says,

FIDE has asked the Continents to send the names of the participants in the World Cup before May 31st, 2021, also approving to organize Continental Hybrid Championships where no titles will be granted.

[Asia] - Zone 3.5 is missing. Zone 3.6 was covered on 2021 Oceania Zonal (chessexpress.blogspot.com). That kickoff post explained,

The 2021 Oceania Zonal is now going ahead as a 'hybrid' event. This means that the players will be playing online, but supervised by an in place arbiter. Due to the logistics of organising such an event, it will be a round robin tournament, with 1 player per country, except Australia, who can nominate 2 players.

[Africa] - I first mentioned the new zone 4.5 in FIDE Details the New Cycle (May 2019).

For more about the hybrid format, see my recent post FIDE Hybrid Competitions: 'In a few months we'll learn how well this works for World Championship qualifiers.' The experience started with zone 3.6.

FIDE Candidates Tournament, Final Chapter?

Regarding the February announcement, FIDE resumes the Candidates Tournament (fide.com), shouldn't that say, 'FIDE plans to resume...'? The announcement started,

The Candidates Tournament, the biennial 8-player event that decides who will be the Challenger for the World Chess Championship title, will resume on the 19th of April in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

It also gave an overview of the tournament standing, reproduced below, when it was interrupted after the first half had been completed.

I added a link for the announcement to my page, 2020 Candidates Tournament; Yekaterinburg (Russia), III-IV, 2020. There are now 19 Fide.com links on that page, which might be some kind of a record. For the recent announcement about the subsequent title match, see Expo 2020 Dubai (in 2021).

Expo 2020 Dubai (in 2021)

Dubai emerges as likely host for November world championship (theguardian.com; Leonard Barden) • Breaking news? No, the dateline is February 2020 and the first line warns, 'This article is more than 11 months old'. It starts,

Magnus Carlsen’s next world championship defence is likely to be in Dubai. The global chess body’s president, Arkady Dvorkovich, said in an interview in Gibraltar that Fide is close to signing a contract with Expo Dubai to stage the €2m, 14-game series there in November.

Carlsen’s opponent will be decided by the eight-man candidates’ tournament which starts at Ekaterinburg, Russia, on 15 March, and where the United States world No 2, Fabiano Caruana, who tied the 2018 championship series with Carlsen before losing a speed play-off, is the favourite.

We all know what happened next. First there was the Coronavirus Candidates (March 2020; on my main blog). Then there was 2020 World Championship Postponed (July 2020). Fast forward to a year after the Leonard Barden article and we learn, Expo 2020 Dubai to host FIDE World Chess Championship (fide.com):-

The next FIDE World Chess Championship -- the highlight of the world chess calendar -- will be held at Expo 2020 Dubai, promising an enthralling contest that will delight chess fans and the wider public alike.

Organised by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), the postponed 2020 championship will take place between 24 November and 16 December 2021, and will see the reigning world champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, defend his title against the winner of the delayed Candidates Tournament, which is due to conclude in Ekaterinburg, Russia, in April. The two players will compete for a prize fund of EUR 2 million (AED 9 million).

I added that FIDE link to my page on the next title match, 2021 Carlsen - ?, then wondered what are the odds that the Candidates tournament and/or the title match will take place. Does anyone know?

Whither the Women's World Championship?

My first question while Spectating the 91st FIDE Congress on my main blog was 'What about the Women's World Championship?' FIDE has been dithering on the subject for over two years, as a recent post on this current blog, Notes on the Women's Championship (November 2020), documented. The 'Spectating' post mentioned four FIDE announcements (see that post for links):-

• 2020-12-05: '2020 FIDE Online General Assembly Agenda' • '5.2 Women's World Cup 2021 and World Cup 2021'
• 2020-12-10: '91st FIDE Congress: decisions, documents, numbers' • 'Even though the Gibraltar Chess Open 2021 had to be canceled, ['founder and driving force behind the Gibraltar Chess Festival, Brian Callaghan'] managed to keep the tradition alive by hosting the fourth and final leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix, from January 17-29.'
• 2020-12-16: 'Decisions of the 4th quarter FIDE Online Council Meeting' • 'fee reduction for women’s titles and ratings'; 'approve the 2021 Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss Regulations'; 'note EDU, WOM, [...] reports'
• 2020-12-17: 'Decisions of the FIDE Online General Assembly 2020' • zilch

The first bullet (2020-12-05) is a change to allow federations to nominate participants. See FIDE World Cups 2021: Players nomination (fide.com) for details.

The second bullet (2020-12-10) has since been superseded by FIDE Women's Grand Prix Gibraltar rescheduled (fide.com). This is through no fault of the organizer, but is another casualty of the covid coronavirus.

The third bullet (2020-12-16) might have further info, but I could not find the WOM report. The Commission for Women’s Chess (wom.fide.com) is filled with old news. For details about the Grand Swiss, see Bidding procedure for FIDE Grand Swiss & FIDE Women's Grand Swiss 2021 (fide.com).

The fourth bullet (2020-12-17) sums up the rest: mostly zilch. Maybe the minutes of the Congress will be more informative.

Karpov on the Rock

Earlier this year, for a featured monthly video on my main blog, I chose Retro Engine Chess (February 2020). There was another good choice, but it had already so many views and comments that I decided not to use it. It popped up on my radar again this past week, and it's too good to ignore a second time.

"I wanted to defeat Bobby" | GM Anatoly Karpov Interview (20:20) • '[Published on] Jan 29, 2020'

The GibChess description said,

A candid interview with former World Champion Anatoly Karpov. The Russian GM shares stories and reflections on his chess career with Tania Sachdev. Special thanks to Chess Base India.

For a transcript of the video, see Karpov on Fischer, Korchnoi, Kasparov and the chess world today (chessbase.com). For a related Youtube video, this one from GBC News and with far fewer views, see Former Official Chess World Champion Anatoly Karpov on the Rock. Its description said,

Former Official Chess World Champion Anatoly Karpov is visiting the Rock as part of the Gibraltar International Chess Festival. Considered one of the greatest players in history, he's the third longest world champion, behind Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov. Christine Vasquez took the opportunity of gaining an insight into current developments in Russian politics but first asked Mr Karpov how he felt to be on the Rock supporting the Chess festival.

Change 'third longest world champion' to 'third longest world champion in post-WWII times' and I'll say no more, even though Carlsen hasn't (yet) caught up with Karpov.

2019 World Cup - Qualified Players

Last week, in a post on my main blog, 2020 Candidates - Early World Championship Steps, I ended with a couple of actions:-

To do: (1) Fill in those three blanks for the nominees to '2019 WCup'. (2) Crosslink (in both directions) the IZ/KO/WCup pages with the corresponding QP page for faster navigation between them.

That first action was a continuation of a post from last year, C29 Zonal Qualification Paths (December 2019), on this World Chess Championship blog. After researching the 'three blanks', I added the necessary info to the December post. Most of that post was about discrepancies between the list of players who qualified for the 2019 World Cup and the players who eventually appeared for the event. At the time I identified a further project:-

Try to apply [the methodology] to the players listed on Zonal Qualifiers 2016-2017 (C28). Ditto for previous cycles.

As for that second action stemming from the '2020 Candidates', to crosslink pages, I'll tackle it another time.