World Chess Cup starts in Baku

The World Chess Cup started in Baku, which this time brought together an unusually strong line-up of participants. They will compete for three tickets at once to the Candidates Tournament, which will determine the contender for the world title. And among the applicants for these vouchers was even the great Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, although a year ago he refused the title, now owned by the Chinese Ding Liren.

Started in Baku tournament – this is the main competition in chess according to the knockout system, which adds pepper and unpredictability to the fight. Once upon a time, the former president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, generally tried to play the main chess title in it, but then he abandoned the idea, returning the traditional long matches, which almost exclude the element of chance, the status of the only way to reveal the king of the game. And the dashing world championship in the play-off format, when you have to break through several rounds to win, through fights consisting of two games with classical control with a tie-break in rapid and blitz in case of a draw, has been transformed into the World Cup, an important part of the championship. cycle.

This year, it can be safely called the most important. The fact is that the World Cup has always played out two tickets to the Candidates’ Tournament, the crown of the cycle in which eight chess players determine the contender for the championship title: he then meets with its owner.

In Baku, there are already three of these vouchers for both men and women. And this, perhaps, is one of the main reasons that provided the competitions in the Azerbaijani capital with an unusually strong line-up of participants.

Previously, it always showed a lot of gaps. Far from all leading grandmasters like the “knockout”, which is fraught with breakdowns out of the blue. As well as the toughest schedule of the World Cup, when you have to play for almost a whole month, in fact, without pauses and without the right to relax even once, because there is no way to correct a misfire. But in Baku there are only a few of these gaps. The Men’s World Cup, for example, from the potential favorites missed the world champion Chinese Ding Liren, from whom performance in the next match for the title will not go anywhere and who victory in the April duel for him against Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi, it seems that for a long time she deprived of energy (his compatriot Ju Wenjun, who owns the women’s title, by the way, got into the Baku application), representing France and the United States, prodigy Alireza Firouzdzhi and veteran Levon Aronian and domestic grandmaster Sergey Karyakin. Offended by FIDE because of last year’s disqualification for supporting a special military operation in Ukraine, Karjakin seems to be just does not see himself in her tournaments.

And so in place, in fact, the entire elite. Here are Ian Nepomniachtchi, and the Americans Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura, who until recently seemed to have given up on professional chess and focused on his career as a streamer, but suddenly returned to old habits, and the Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and the Dutchman Anish Giri, and the winner of the previous World Cup – in Sochi in 2021 – the Pole Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and the Azerbaijanis Teymur Radjabov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and a squad of young talents, already shaking seasoned fighters – the Indians Gukesh Dommaraju and Rameshbabu Pragnanandha, the Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov, the German Vincent Kaimer. All of them, being highly seeded, miss the first round, including from the 1/64 finals.

But the main decoration of the World Cup is, of course, Magnus Carlsen.

The great Norwegian, who reigned in chess for ten years, voluntarily gave up his championship title last year, but he still confidently leads the FIDE rating and, in principle, sometimes plays in such a way that it is tempting to consider him still a real chess king, albeit without formal recognition. However, in this case, Carlsen’s motivation is understandable. It is customary to say about the Norwegian grandmaster that he won everything that is possible. But it is not so. Surprisingly, it was the World Cup that Carlsen never submitted to. Moreover, he never made it to the final. His most notable rise took place at the tournament two years ago. In Sochi, Carlsen fell short in the semi-finals on the Duda. After that, the Pole defeated Karjakin in the final match, the Norwegian coped in the match for bronze with Vladimir Fedoseev, then a Russian, now playing under the Slovenian flag.

The arrival of Magnus Carlsen in Baku also creates a bonus, or something, intrigue related to the question of whether he will refuse a ticket to the Candidates Tournament if he enters the top three? After all, he hasn’t said anything in recent months that would indicate that Carlsen suddenly regained a keen desire to fight for the championship. In theory, he simply does not need a ticket. Like Ian Nepomniachtchi, who provided her with participation in the April championship match. But both of them won’t be able to get into the top three at the same time: unless something sensational happens, the bracket will push Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi in the semi-finals. True, the sensational at the World Cup, as a rule, is full.

Alexey Dospekhov