Chess is the only sport witnessing uninterrupted action despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Even as chess enthusiasts are hooked online to watch the inaugural Magnus Carlsen invitational with the best players featuring in it, Fide - the game’s governing body - has announced its first-ever major online event. Fide and chess.com will come together to host the Online Nations Cup, a team competition to be held from May 5 to 10. The event will see six teams – China, Europe, India, Russia, USA and a side representing the ‘Rest of the World’ - vying for top honours.
It is learnt that former world champions Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov will captain the Indian and European teams respectively. The preliminary list has the likes of Viswanathan Anand, Alireza Firouzja in it. The composition of the teams will be out on April 22. The tournament regulations have made it mandatory for every team to include at least one female player during the match. “All the top women players in the world have expressed their readiness to be part of the tournament,” Emil Sutovsky, Fide’s director general said. The prize money for the whole event is $180,000.
In the first stage of the competition, the six teams will be engaging in double round-robin clashes from May 5 to 9. Teams finishing in the top-two will then play the final on May 10. “All games will be played in a rapid format. Each player begins the game with 25 minutes on their clock, plus 10 seconds of extra time added after each move,” Sutovsky said.
In their bid to ensure fair play, players will be observed by Fide-affiliated international arbiters via a video conference call. Fie is making sure that the participants don't receive any kind of external help. Their computer, webcam, computer screen and the room in which they will be playing will be under supervision.
The entire event will be shown live across multiple outlets including Fide’s and chess.com's own channels across Twitch, YouTube, Mixer, Twitter and other international streaming platforms.
“We will have a commentary by chess experts that will be conducted in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish and Polish,” Sutovsky said.
