Reda Saleem (Dubai)
The World School Chess Championship kicked off in Spain’s pavilion at Expo 2020, with the participation of 108 male and female players from 10 countries, divided into 12 teams, who qualified from the final qualifiers for the event over the course of a year, and 2,600 U-16 players from 54 countries participated in the qualifiers. .
And the Spanish pavilion turned into a big festival, as the organizing committee of the tournament was keen to display chess matches between the Norwegian Magnus, the current world champion, and a number of young players via the Internet, in addition to the fact that the entrance to the Spanish pavilion witnessed a large presence of chess players, in addition to a large number of fans. Smart game lovers, and a hall was allocated for the players participating in the tournament, and before the kickoff, there were a number of instructions from the technical committee of the event, as well as the organizing committee on the arrangements for matches, and the players’ commitment to the procedures followed.
On the other hand, the World Chess Championship starts today, which represents the challenges for the title of world champion between the Norwegian Magnus Carlson, the holder of the title since 2013 until now, and the Russian Ian Nepomniacci, and the tournament will be held for the first time on Arab soil, and will continue until December 16. Between the two champions to win the title and a financial prize of two million euros, Mahdi Abdel Rahim heads the referees committee in the tournament, nominated by Arkady, President of the International Federation of the game.
The Norwegian Magnus, 31, has been the world champion of the classic, fast and blitz since 2013, as he has maintained the title unchallenged so far, and his rating reached 2,882 points, the highest in history. During his participation in the Dubai Open Chess Championship in 2004, and at the age of 17 he tied for first place in the elite group of the Tata Steel Championship, and exceeded the 2800 rating at the age of 18, and reached number one in the International Federation classification at the age of 19, which made him the youngest player ever achieve those accomplishments.
Carlsen became the World Chess Champion in 2013 by defeating India’s Vithno Anand, and the following year he maintained his title against the same player in the 2014 World Chess Championships and Blitz Chess, which were held in the UAE at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club Hall, thus becoming the first player to collect the three titles at the same time. One, repeating the feat in 2019, defended his world title in classic chess against Russian Sergei Kariakin in 2016 and Italy’s Fabio Caruana in 2018.
Competing with him is the Russian Ian Nepomniacchi, born on July 14, 1990, who won the title of international grandmaster in 2007, and reached the top of the classification with 2792 points, and is the fifth in the world in the international classification. his nickname.
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