Before the Match

Before the World Championship Match 2016 Carlsen vs. Karjakin in New York

Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin

The world looks to New York – from Asia to America attention turns to a market building near Brooklyn Bridge. Great events such as the Candidates Tournament, the Tal Memorial and the Chess Olympiad in Baku have fascinated chess players, but when Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin meet, the eyes of the world will turn to New York.

Crosstown traffic in New York

New York is the capital of the world, as Rome was once. Three years ago we saw an incredible beehive of excitement in Chennai and New York will counter that with East Coast coolness and absorb the buzz in a more cosmopolitan way. New York is now the capital of chess. Near Wall Street, the Seaport District, Pier 16, with a view to the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, will become the epicenter of an event which marks the highlight of the last three years in the chess world. But this is also the first World Championship match which allows the viewer be close to the action while sitting in front of his computer at home. The World Chess Federation offers millions of viewers a virtual entry card to the event which offers a direct view of the stage.

The place of battle (Photo: Agon)

21 years ago the city saw another World Championship match, in the World Trade Center, but since then the world has rapidly become interconnected and is more linked than it was during the pioneering times of the internet. To keep some balance and ground it fits that Judit Polgar will commentate the dramatic events on the board. Thanks to her approachable, calm personality and her confident expertise more people will understand and relate to the turbulent events on the board which for outsiders are so often very abstract. News desks all over the world will know how the battle stands and how significant this is. What a leap from the time in which an innocent journalist cabled from Reykjavík to his editors at home: „Fischer wins with trick of the queen!“ – in the 6^th game of the World Championship 1972 the challenger had surprised the Russian World Champion with the Queen’s Gambit.

Never before could chess fans follow a World Championship match that closely

We are on site in New York and we will attend the events. But in Hamburg the network cables will also run at full speed. For three decades ChessBase has been an inherent part of the world of chess, more than only one era in our fast times. We communicate with chess players of all levels and want to contribute to make this festival come alive. We are looking forward to great chess in New York City and we are ready. We want to experience and celebrate this festival, we want to understand, discuss, and suffer with a passion. We transmit the match officially live on playchess.com and we will present events and games with commentary by our authors, and we connect to this planet which in these days of November looks to New York City.

Translation: Johannes Fischer