21 hours ago
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The alternatively quiescent confines of Deichman Bjorvika, a nationalist room here, volition alteration into a battlefield for the adjacent 2 weeks arsenic immoderate of the champion successful the concern volition combat for apical honours successful Norway Chess from Monday.
The enigmatic Magnus Carlsen, an icon of satellite chess and Norwegian sport, volition beryllium the 1 to bushed successful the six-player Open lawsuit which besides includes reigning World champion D. Gukesh and chap Indian R. Praggnanandhaa.
The women’s conception features World rubric holder Ju Wenjun of China, India’s Koneru Humpy and Divya Deshmukh among others.
It was astatine this tournament, albeit astatine a antithetic venue (Stavanger), that Carlsen slammed the array successful vexation aft losing to Gukesh, his archetypal decision to the Indian successful the Classical format.
The 2 volition beryllium astatine it again successful the treble round-robin event, and their duels committedness to beryllium intense.
Gukesh and Carlsen apart, Praggnanandhaa, Vincent Keymer (Germany), Wesley So (USA) and Alireza Firouzja (France) springiness the Open line-up an elite look.
In the women’s class, which carries the aforesaid prize wealth arsenic the Open category, Ju volition person to contend with chap Chinese Zhu Jiner, Humpy, Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine), Bibisara Assaubayeva of Kazakhstan and Divya for supremacy.
According to tourney rules, should a classical crippled extremity successful a draw, the players volition spell head-to-head successful an Armageddon brushwood to find the winner.
Kjell Madland, the tourney director, is expecting high-quality matches successful the coming days.
(The writer is successful Oslo astatine the invitation of Norway Chess).
