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The second leg of the 2023 Grand Chess Tour kicked off yesterday in Warsaw, Poland, with World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, and several other wildcards joining the GCT field for five days of non-stop rapid and blitz action. After the first day, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, and local favorite Jan-Krzysztof Duda lead with a score of 5.0/6, while Carlsen is in 7th place after scoring one loss and two draws

The opening ceremony began with a drawing of lots and featured a simul where each of the tournament participants played in tandem on 25 boards, alternating moves. Local sport stars, chess influences, and local chess players got a chance to face the GCT field. In the end, the grandmasters won 19 games, with three draws and three losses.

RAPID | ROUNDS 1-3

The first round started off with multiple decisive games, including a huge upset as Wojtaszek defeated a gambling Carlsen, who chose the extremely risky (but festive) Polish Opening (1.d4 b5) and fell under heavy pressure from the outset.

Other important results saw So defeating Deac, Rapport defeating Shevchenko, and Duda grinding out a win against Giri in a technical endgame:

In Round 2 the players settled down a bit, as the games Carlsen-So, Giri-MVL, and Rapport-Wojtaszek all ended peacefully. In the meantime Aronian took advantage of a late endgame blunder by Shevchenko to pick up the full point, while Duda took the sole lead with 2/2 after defeating Deac in a long positional squeeze.

The final round saw more action with Aronian winning his second game of the day as he defeated Giri in a rook endgame, while Vachier-Lagrave scored a brilliant attacking effort against Deac. But the most exciting game was won by So, who managed to exploit a late endgame blunder by Rapport in order to win while a full rook down:

In the meantime Carlsen drew his third round game against Duda, as he played the Caro-Kann and comfortably held a slightly worse endgame.

The 2023 Superbet Rapid & Blitz continues Monday, May 22, with tournament action live starting at 7:05 AM CT with Grandmaster commentators Yasser Seirawan, Var Akobian, Cristian Chirila and International Master Nazi Paikidze on   grandchesstour.org  and on the Saint Louis Chess Club’s   YouTube  and   Twitch.tv  channels.

Text: IM Kostya Kavutskiy

Photos: Courtesy of Grand Chess Tour and Spectrum Studios Credits available on Flickr.  

Further Information: Web:  GrandChessTour.org  | Twitter:  @GrandChessTour Instagram:  @GrandChessTour  | Facebook:  @GrandChessTour #GrandChessTour #SuperbetRapidBlitzPoland

Venue:  Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland May 21 - May 25, 2023

Press Contact: press @grandchesstour.org

Livestream: GrandChessTour.org  

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Richest chess tour announced for 2025 as freestyle wins global appeal

Freestyle Chess (also known as Fischer Random and Chess 960) has announced a $1m tournament in each of five continents

Freestyle Chess, which made an impressive debut last month , has firmed up its plans to expand into five continents next year, as well as enlisting the top 25 elite grandmasters into a new club for its competing players. The variant, also known as Fischer Random and Chess 960, has the back rank pieces on both sides on random squares, with Black’s pieces placed equal-and-opposite to their White counterparts.

German promoter Jan Buettner, who heads Freestyle along with the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, and who made his fortune from AOL Europe, has launched the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, where the prize fund for each of the five events is projected to rise gradually to $1m.

For comparison, the existing over-the-board Grand Chess Tour, organised from St Louis and culminating in the Sinquefield Cup, offers a total of $1.5m, while the Champions Tour, where four online tournaments are followed by an over-the-board final, has $1.7m.

Top grandmasters are enthusiastic, and no wonder. Freestyle offers a generously rewarded escape from the many hours of drudgery spent before a classical game in preparing openings in detail with the aid of a Stockfish computer, with the real possibility that the mutual research will fizzle out into a drawn ending. It is very different at the level of the average player or even the average master, where you can surprise the opponent with a well prepared opening bomb and where even this is no guarantee of ultimate success.

If Freestyle is to gain traction, Buettner will have to justify his declared ambition of “making it as commercially successful as iconic sports events like the ATP for tennis, PGA for golf, and Formula 1 for motorsport”. The next Slam in India in November, with a $500k prize fund, looks sure to be a success, as Indian chess fans will want to watch their teenage heroes take on Carlsen. February 2025, back in north Germany with $750k, should also go well, but the later events, where the Tour goes into new territory in South America and South Africa with the full $1m, may face logistical problems.

At best, if all goes according to plan, the global chess economy will receive a significant boost, while the benchmark for an elite grandmaster, currently 2700 , will move up to 2725 to match the new pot of gold.

Matthew Wadsworth scored his best international performance yet on Thursday when the Cambridge economics graduate, 23, tied for second with 7/9 in the giant 400-player Reykjavik Open, taking sixth prize on tiebreak. The top seeded Romanian, Bogdan-Daniel Deac, won first prize with 7.5/9.

Wadsworth, who lost only once, played a fine attacking game in the ninth and final round to checkmate the No 4 seed, GM Jules Moussard of France, whose white king was caught in mid-board in a 41-move Italian Game.

Wadsworth’s rating performance narrowly missed achieving his second GM norm, but he will have another chance for that on Saturday, in one of two important tournaments that begin this weekend with opportunities for England’s young talents to win international titles. Both events have support from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s £500k grant for elite chess announced last year.

The 4NCL Spring GM Round Robin is a 10-player event where IMs Marcus Harvey, 28, Wadsworth, 23, and Shreyas Royal, 15, all have chances for the GM norm of 6.5/9. Play starts at 3pm on Saturday, with nine rounds in five days.

The eighth Menchik Memorial commemorates the first woman world champion, who was killed by a V1 rocket in 1944. The 10-player event starts on Friday (round one 10am, round two 3pm), and continues until Tuesday, with women’s title norms at stake.

Bodhana Sivanandan, nine, will take part and comes direct from another impressive result at Reykjavik, where she scored 5.5/9 with a TPR of 2069, losing only to a GM and an IM (see the puzzle below). Games from both next week’s events will be shown live on lichess

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In the £400k American Cup, with Open and Women’s sections, Levon Aronian beat Wesley So in the open final, while Alice Lee, 14, defeated the holder, Irina Krush, in the women’s final. The favourite, the world No 2, Fabiano Caruana, lost to Aronian and So, sparking concerns about his form before next month’s Candidates in Toronto.

3912 : 1...Re5! 2 Qxc3 Qxh2+! 3 Kxh2 Rh5+ 4 Kg1 Rh1 mate. If 2 g4 Qxg4+! 3 Nxg4 Re1 mate or 3 Kf1 Qh3+ and mates.

3912A: 1 Rc1! g4 2 Rc2! dxc2 3 Bc1! a3 4 Rf4! Kxf4 5 d4 mate.

3912B: 1 Nd5+! Qxd5/Kb5 2 Qa4 mate.

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2022 grand chess tour.

GCT Final Standings

The Grand Chess Tour continues for 2022 in magnificent fashion with $1.4 million total prize fund allocated between 5 events. It will once again feature 2 classical chess tournaments and 3 rapid & blitz tournaments spanning across Europe and United States. With the addition of an new event in Warsaw, Poland, fans can look forward to another entertaining and thrilling season.

The new season will start with a classical tournament in Romania; followed by three rapid & blitz tournaments in Paris, Croatia, and Warsaw; and will conclude with the final classical event, the Sinquefield Cup. 

• Superbet Chess Classic Romania : May 3 - 15, 2022, Bucharest, Romania
• Superbet Rapid & Blitz Poland : May 17 - 24, 2022, Warsaw, Poland
• SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Croatia : July 18 - 25, 2022, Zagreb, Croatia
• Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz : August 24 - 31, 2022, St. Louis, Missouri USA
• Sinquefield Cup : August 31 – 13, 2022, St. Louis, Missouri USA

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WEATHER ALERT

A rip current statement in effect for Coastal Volusia Region

Video: abandoned orlando hotel catches fire, firefighters respond to i-drive grand resort & suites.

Brandon Hogan , Digital Editor

ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando firefighters responded early Saturday to a burning abandoned hotel in the city’s tourist district.

The Orlando Fire Department set out around 6:15 a.m. to the dilapidated I-Drive Grand Resort & Suites in the 7000 block of S. Kirkman Road, a stone’s throw away from other hotels such as Universal’s Endless Summer Resort along Universal Boulevard and a Hampton Inn location just further south, according to a statement.

Crews reported a two-alarm fire that extended to about a quarter of the building, the statement reads. A spokesperson for the city told News 6 they were advised at least one person was found inside and escorted out, adding the cause was likely due to activity in the building.

Photos and video shared by the fire department show flames and smoke pouring from the structure.

No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is still said to be under investigation.

According to property records, the hotel was deemed uninhabitable in an Aug. 31, 2020 inspection that found noncompliance with city code regarding fire protection. The inspection noted in part the structure’s state as “neglected, damaged, dilapidated, unsecured or abandoned.”

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About the Author:

Brandon hogan.

Brandon, a UCF grad, joined the ClickOrlando team in November 2021. Before joining News 6, Brandon worked at WDBO.

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