Zurich: Blitz and Opening Ceremony

The «Zurich Chess Challenge 2014» will be the first encounter between the newly crowned World Champion, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, and the former title holder, India’s Viswanathan Anand after their recent match in Chennai. From Wednesday, 29 January to Tuesday, 4 February 2014, they will compete in the 3rd Zurich Chess Challenge along with four other great chess stars: Levon Aronian (Armenia), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Fabiano Caruana (Italy) and Boris Gelfand (Israel).

Blitz and Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony featured some lovely traditional and classical music, in prelude to a clashing blitz tournament.

Two of the artists performing for the grandmasters

And now in action!

All of the players thoroughly enjoyed the performance and seemed rather captivated by it

In the back: Peter Heine Nielsen, Carlsen's second, Henrik Carlsen, Carlsen's father
and Vladimir Chuchelov, Caruana's second

Vishy Anand and a giant of chess ages past: Gennadi Sosonko

Sofi Leko, Peter Leko, Yanick Pelletier and Fabiano Caruana enjoying a pleasant chat

World Champion Hou Yifan flew in from China as a guest of honor of the event

The main sponsor Oleg Skvortsov and his wife Natalia

Oleg Skvortsov is the owner of IGC International Gemological Laboratories and the creator of this chess event. At the opening ceremony Skvortsov said that his wife Natalia was the driving force behind the Zurich Chess Challenge. Oleg Skvortsov himself not only loves chess, but also plays chess and supports events. Furthermore, Skvortsov knows many of the greatest chess players in the world personally and has played a lot of games with them.

Behind Natalia Skvortsov we spot Arianne Caoili, who has
expressed her absolute love for the city of Zurich.

Blitz Tournament

The blitz tournament was held as a warm up for the players and to determine the pairings of the event. With live commentary by Yanick Pelletier and Peter Leko the event was a pleasure to watch - and we highly recommend you see the videos at the official website.

Danny King tournament recap

Caruana struck a powerful blow by vanquishing Carlsen with a brutal attack on the kingside. A surprising move left the position of the World Champion completely indefensible and he collapsed soon afterwards. Since Carlsen also had rocky games in the next couple of rounds it seemed like he was out of contention.

Nakamura lost his first game against Gelfand, but much like Carlsen he recovered and kept climbing in points. Aronian demolished Anand in the first round and seems to keep his good form. The Armenian could have won the tournament had he converted his decisive advantage against Carlsen. The American could also have won the tournament had he held a draw against the World Champion in the last round, but neither of these results happened and some way or another Carlsen won the tournament!

Caruana ready for action. He started with a crushing victory over Carlsen.

Aronian had a very strong showing while Anand seemed to struggle a bit in the blitz

Nakamura didn't need his bishops to secure himself more whites than blacks in the event

Blitz is always tense...

Analysis of the above game by Sagar Shah. Check out his blog here.

Replay all the Blitz games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Maria Emelianova - Photographer Maria Emelianova is 26 years old, born in Ekaterinburg, Russia, Women FIDE Master, with a 2113 Elo rating. After finishing school Maria moved to Moscow to study at the university, so chess was forgotten for some time. She worked for about a year with Alexander Roshal in the chess magazine "64". Her carrier as a chess photographer started at the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk. "It was just a hobby, but somehow became an interesting job," says Maria, who works with a Canon 1DX. "Now I am finishing my studies at two universities in Moscow, and am looking forward to a future in the big world of chess."

Schedule and Pairings

The event is a six player round robin, with a rate of play of 40 moves in 120 minutes, then 20 moves in 60 minutes and the rest of game in 15 minutes, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. Special rule: in case of a draw before move 40, an additional rapid game will be played (which does not count for the overall result).

• The blitz will be used to determine the colors
• The classical time control gives two points to wins, one for draws and none for losses
• The rapid time control gives one point to wins, half to draws and none for losses

The winner will be the one who scores the most points between the classical tournament and the rapid.

Schedule of Commentary

Schedule and results

Rapid Schedule

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.