Nakamura vs Caruana match starts today

by ChessBase
11/12/2015 – Today two exciting exhibition matches will take place, and should not be missed. The first is Hikaru Nakamura against Fabiano Caruana, and will be games played in rapid, blitz and even Fischer Random 960! The second, along the same model, will pit top female Hou Yifan against GM Parimarjan Negi. In an innovative step, the readers and fans are invited to vote on the starting positions!

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Vote for the starting positions! See below!

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis is proud to host the 2015 Showdown in Saint Louis - a pair of exhibition matches between GM Hikaru Nakamura vs. GM Fabiano Caruana and GM Hou Yifan vs. GM Parimarjan Negi.

Featured exhibition matches will include exciting games of various formats including Fischer Random (Chess 960), Rapid, Blitz and Blindfold. All games count towards the final score with a win counting as one point, a draw as a half point and a loss as zero points. Players will be competing for $150,000 in prizes.

GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Fabiano Caruana are the top two American chess players, and both call Saint Louis home. The two are also competing in the 2015 Grand Chess Tour. Nakamura, who is known for his creative play and aggressive style, has lead the American chess scene for nearly a decade. Fabiano recently returned to the U.S., after having represented Italy in international competition for the past 10 years. Fabiano wowed audiences by winning his first seven rounds and coasting to an impressive victory in the 2014 Sinquefield Cup.

Hikaru Nakamura
Fabiano Caruana
Place
Prize
1st
US$60 thousand
2nd
US$40 thousand

Former Women’s World Champion, GM Hou Yifan and GM Parimarjan Negi of New Dehli, India will also square off, following the same format. Hailing from China, 21-year-old Hou Yifan is the strongest active female player in the world and is the only female currently ranked in the top 100. Indian GM Negi, at 22 years old, is a former Asian continental champion and currently attends Stanford University.

Hou Yifan
Parimarjan Negi
Place
Prize
1st
US$30 thousand
2nd
US$20 thousand

Each game of the exhibition matches will feature live commentary from GM Yasser Seirawan, WGM Jennifer Shahade and GM Maurice Ashley. The event will be streamed live via Playchess as well as the official site.

Vote for the starting positions

The @CCSCSL Twitter account is running a promotion/poll on Twitter where followers may vote for the starting positions—selected by Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63), of all four games of Fischer Random Chess during Showdown in St. Louis (#STLShowdown). These games will be played on Friday Nov. 13th @ 1pm.

There is a 5-minute video that will be posted to saintlouischessclub.org & uschesschamps.com where Garry fully explains the positions and why they were chosen. In addition, there are individual clips of each voting segment, that will be posted on Facebook to drive viewers to Twitter.

Here are the scheduled polling times, along with the options:

Game 1 Voting: Nov. 12 from 8am to Noon CST

Position 1

or

Position 2

Game 2 Voting: Nov. 12 from Noon - 4pm CST

Position 3

or

Position 4

Game 3 Voting: Nov. 12 from 4pm - 8pm CST

Position 5

or

Position 6

Game 4 Voting: Nov. 13 from 8am - Noon CST

Position 7

or

Position 8

The voting results will be revealed at the beginning of the games on Friday, and on Twitter. Everyone is encouraged to have fun with this! Please vote, retweet, and use the above-mentioned @tags and #tags.

Vote at the St Louis Chess Club Twitter channel


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