Paris Rapid & Blitz Starts Today
When the Norway tournament organizers withdrew their event from the Grand Chess Tour earlier this year, the decision was made to replace that classical tournament with a pair of rapid & blitz round robins. Those events will be held back-to-back; the first in Paris, starting today, and the next one in Leuven. The events feature the same players, and probably have the same format as well. (Feel free to correct me my assumption is mistaken!)
The rapid portion (25' + 10") begins today (Thursday, 2 p.m. local time = 8 a.m. ET) and is a single round-robin that will last two days, followed the next two days by a double round-robin blitz (5' + 2"). The dramatis personae are:
- Magnus Carlsen
- Vladimir Kramnik
- Fabiano Caruana
- Levon Aronian
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
- Hikaru Nakamura
- Anish Giri
- Wesley So
- Veselin Topalov
- Laurent Fressinet
Perhaps the event could be even more interesting if the last two or three players were replaced with players who are higher-rated in rapid and blitz (e.g. Ian Nepomniachtchi), or for that matter Garry Kasparov. Still, it's a great field and the event should be a feast for the spectators.
Reader Comments (2)
I think Vishy replaces Fressinet in Brussels.
Technically it is/was the other way around: In Paris, Fressinet (as an additional wildcard) replaced Chess Tour regular Anand, who had other commitments in Leon. BTW for what it's worth, the next event won't be held in Brussels, but in nearby Leuven (venue the historic town hall). Earlier, "Brussels and Leuven" was mentioned - maybe they didn't find a suitable venue in Brussels.
[DM: Fixed. Funny enough, in my newer post I had "Leuven", so you decided to look at an old post to have something to correct? :)]