Nakamura-Caruana in November, Plus an Undercard, Plus the European Team Championship
It looks like Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana will engage in a sort of tetrathlon in St. Louis next month. From the 12th through the 15th they will compete against each other in Chess960 (4 games at 20' + 10"), rapid (4 15' + 10" games), blitz (8 games at 3' + 2") and blindfold (not sure about the details). The games in each discipline count equally, and the overall winner of the match gets $60,000 while the loser gets $40,000.
Meanwhile, there will be a concurrent match between Hou Yifan and Indian star (and Stanford student) Parimarjan Negi. I believe (but am not positive) that they will follow the same format.
It looks entertaining, though chess fans won't be hurting for excitement as the European Team Championship also starts November 12, and includes Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk and many, many more superstars of the game.
Reader Comments (1)
So what's the point of this exhibition match? To me, it seems like just an excuse for RS to donate money to the American cause. RS's thought: should I hand Naka and Caurana $50k? No, let's make them play an exhibition match before we hand them the money. Okay, fine. Nothing wrong with a bit of private sponsorship. But let's see it for what it is. That said, I don't think that this match will even be competitive. Naka is far superior to Caruana in 960, rapid, and blitz. 10-6 or 11-5 in Naka's favor. I think Caruana relies too much on opening prep. Naka has a better feel for the patterns. Not saying that Caruana's strengths don't mean anything when competing in regular chess, but I don't think he can compete in Naka's domain. Naka crushed Wesley So in a blitz match on chess.com. Speaking of So, where will he be during all this?Wonder why he was left out. Schedule conflict?
[DM: I have no problem with Sinquefield giving money to the U.S. chess cause. It's good publicity for the club to have more marquee events, and it helps our players by giving them some high-level practice and some money in anticipation of the Candidates' tournament. That's also a reason why So might not have been invited - he won't be in the Candidates' unless it's on U.S. soil, which is not yet a given. (Plus a three-person event is kind of awkward, and Ray Robson, as great and as talented a player as he is, doesn't yet belong with the Big 3.)]