World Chess Championship 2021 - Nepomniachtchi, who ??

The much awaited ‘Ashes’ got off to a start at Brisbane today and it appears Aussies have immediately got upperhand of the match, if not the Series.  Pacer Pat Cummins became the first Australian captain to take a five-wicket haul since Richie Benaud in 1962 and the first captain of either nation to do so since Bob Willis at the Gabba in 1982. It was a day he could not have dreamt up if he tried, as England added another chapter to their horror history at the Gabba. No post on Cricket  - and have you heard of - Ian Alexandrovich Nepomniachtchi, obvious Russian name.

Chess tournaments, for better or worse, don't usually command international headlines. Do you remember those matches in 2013  ~ it was the World Chess Championship between reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Magnus Carlsen, to determine the 2013 World Chess Champion, held from 9 to 22 Nov 2013 in Chennai, India, under the auspices of FIDE (the World Chess Federation).  Carlsen won the match 6½–3½ after ten of the twelve scheduled games, becoming the new world chess champion. That time, the  reigning champion Vishy Anand faced   22-year-old upstart Magnus Carlsen of Norway—nicknamed the "Mozart of Chess" because of his meteoric rise at such a young age.   

Now the man with a name worthy of a password - Nepomniachtchi is being helped by seconds Sergey Yanovsky, Vladimir Potkin and Sergey Karjakin. The seconds of Carlsen have not been made public!  .. ..  Ian Alexandrovich Nepomniachtchi   is a Russian chess grandmaster and commentator. Nepomniachtchi won the 2010 and 2020 Russian Superfinal and the 2010 European Individual titles.  He won the World Team Chess Championship as a member of the Russian team in Antalya  (2013) and Astana (2019). Nepomniachtchi won the 2015 European Team Chess Championship in Reykjavík with the Russian team.  In Dec 2019,  Nepomniachtchi qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2020–21 by finishing second in the FIDE Grand Prix 2019. He won the 2021 FIDE Candidates tournament with a round to spare and currently faces Magnus Carlsen in the World Chess Championship 2021.

Due to WADA sanctions against Russia, FIDE has confirmed that Nepomniachtchi will not compete under the Russian flag. He is playing  as a neutral player under the Chess Federation of Russia (CFR) flag. The sanctions only apply to the world championship match, not to other FIDE events such as the Candidates Tournament.  

The World Chess Championship 2021 is an ongoing chess match between the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and the challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi to determine the World Chess Champion. It is held under the auspices of FIDE and played during Expo 2020 at Dubai Exhibition Centre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, between 24 November and 16 December 2021. The match was originally scheduled for the latter half of 2020, but was postponed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting with move 61. The match consists of 14 games; a score of at least 7½ wins the world championship. If the score is equal after 14 games, tie-break games with faster time controls will be played. Players cannot agree to a draw before Black's 40th move. A draw claim before then is only permitted through the arbiter, if threefold repetition occurs.

Magnus Carlsen has all but retained his world title after defeating Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi for the third time in four games in the ninth encounter of their showdown on Tuesday in Dubai, opening a commanding 6-3 margin in the best-of-14 match with five contests remaining. The cracks that have emerged in the challenger’s veneer since Carlsen drew first blood with a psychologically taxing 7hr 45min epic on Friday – the longest game in the recognised 135-year history of world championship matchplay –culminated in a spectacular self-destruction on Tuesday as Nepomniachtchi made an extraordinary blunder in the middlegame that immediately pointed his Norwegian opponent towards a straightforward win in just under four hours. 

Interesting ! 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
8^th Dec 2021.