English Chess Forum

The next big online event starts on Sunday - the FTX Crypto Cup as part of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. As the name hints, the prize fund will be in Bitcoin; whether that's good or bad is beyond me, but aside from Alan Pichot everyone else in the lineup will be fine, based on their chess earnings and their earning power, even if Bitcoin goes the way of Enron and Bernie Madoff. Here's the rest of the field:

Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Ding Liren, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Daniil Dubov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Teimour Radjabov, Peter Svidler, Wesley So, Anish Giri, and Alireza Firouzja.

The event runs from the 23rd to the 31st of this month, and follows the usual formate: three days of preliminaries reducing the field to eight players (from 16) who will play a series of knockout matches. There will be two days of quarterfinals, two days of semis, and a two-day final. Each round's k.o. matches consists of a pair of best-of-four mini-matches, one mini-match per day. The mini-matches don't have tiebreaks, and are scored overall as if they were a single game. (Thus if player 1 wins the first day 3-0 and loses 2.5-1.5 on the second day, the overall score is 1-1.) If it's 1-1 after the mini-matches, the players have a two-game blitz playoff, followed by an Armageddon game if necessary.

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Wed May 19, 2021 4:41 pm

Part of the Champions Chess Tour

Chess Mind

The next big online event starts on Sunday - the FTX Crypto Cup as part of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. As the name hints, the prize fund will be in Bitcoin; whether that's good or bad is beyond me, but aside from Alan Pichot everyone else in the lineup will be fine, based on their chess earnings and their earning power, even if Bitcoin goes the way of Enron and Bernie Madoff. Here's the rest of the field:

Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Ding Liren, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Daniil Dubov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Teimour Radjabov, Peter Svidler, Wesley So, Anish Giri, and Alireza Firouzja.


The event runs from the 23rd to the 31st of this month, and follows the usual formate: three days of preliminaries reducing the field to eight players (from 16) who will play a series of knockout matches. There will be two days of quarterfinals, two days of semis, and a two-day final. Each round's k.o. matches consists of a pair of best-of-four mini-matches, one mini-match per day. The mini-matches don't have tiebreaks, and are scored overall as if they were a single game. (Thus if player 1 wins the first day 3-0 and loses 2.5-1.5 on the second day, the overall score is 1-1.) If it's 1-1 after the mini-matches, the players have a two-game blitz playoff, followed by an Armageddon game if necessary.

Carlsen white v Nepomniachtchi in round 2 on Sunday

The FTX Crypto Cup is part of the online Champions Chess Tour and takes place 23rd to 31st May 2021. This is the last Major - that is an event where the winner qualifies directly for the tour final in late September - although there are 3 more standard events and the leading players in the tour standings will qualify for the finals too. The top 10 players in the world all compete making this the strongest event on the tour so far. 16 players in the preliminaries will play a round robin to produce 8 qualifiers for the second knockout stage

Round 10 Standings: 1st Caruana 6.5pts, 2nd Radjabov 6.5pts, 3rd Nakamura 6.5pts, 4th Giri 6pts, 5th So 6pts, 6th Svidler 5.5pts, 7th Carlsen 5.5pts, 8th MVL 5.5pts, 9th Ding 5.5pts, 10th Mamedyarov 5pts, 11th Nepomniachtchi 4.5pts, 12th Aronian 4.5pts, 13th Firouzja 4pts, 14th Dubov 4pts, 15th Grischuk 3pts, 16th Pichot 1.5pts.

Having played no events on the tour so far and with only three left after this Caruana will probably have to win this event to reach the tour finals

The second set and any tie-breaks take place Thursday 27th May starting at 4pm

Semifinals Friday 28th May 2021 4pm: Carlsen-Radjabov and Nepomniachtchi-So

The first set of the semifinals of the FTX Crypto Chess tournament saw Wesley So take the lead against Ian Nepomniachtchi by winning the final game of a day after he seemed on the back foot for most of it. Magnus Carlsen took the lead against Teimour Radjabov by winning a fine game three only for Radjabov to strike back straight away in game four so that set ended up tied

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Fri May 28, 2021 10:09 pm

TWIC day 6

The first set of the semifinals of the FTX Crypto Chess tournament saw Wesley So take the lead against Ian Nepomniachtchi by winning the final game of a day after he seemed on the back foot for most of it. Magnus Carlsen took the lead against Teimour Radjabov by winning a fine game three only for Radjabov to strike back straight away in game four so that set ended up tied

Anyone watched any of this and can give any impressions of how well or otherwise everyone is playing?

Magnus Carlsen won the FTX Crypto Chess Cup beating Wesley So in an Armageddon tie-break. This win means that Carlsen will appear in the Meltwater tour final in September