2023 World Rapid & Blitz

[LawrenceCooper]

FIDE have finally announced a venue for this year's event in seven weeks time:

https://twitter.com/FIDE_chess/status/1 ... 3761053812

[Mick Norris]

Uzbekistan will also host the 2026 Chess Olympiad

[Mick Norris]

Chess results Rapid and Women's Rapid

Blitz and Womn's Blitz

Website

Schedule

Venue

[LawrenceCooper]

I'll leave it to others to decide what to make of the spectacle towards the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQkVP9b ... DttZCIRrQs

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I see that Ireland is represented by FM Tom O'Gorman (good luck to him).

Can I ask if the approximately ten sub-2100 players are there on merit and qualified in some way? I am not familiar enough with these two World Championships to know if this is normal or not?

[LawrenceCooper]

Commentator options include:

Chess24: Leko & Naroditsky
FIDE: Anand & Karlovich
Hikaru: Nakamura

[Mick Norris]

I see that Ireland is represented by FM Tom O'Gorman (good luck to him).

Can I ask if the approximately ten sub-2100 players are there on merit and qualified in some way? I am not familiar enough with these two World Championships to know if this is normal or not?

I think it depends on what you mean by merit

2. 1. The following players are eligible to participate in R&B:
 the players rated at least 2550 in any of the twelve most recent FIDE rating lists (Standard, Rapid or Blitz) at the moment of the beginning of R&B;
 the reigning National Champions (in Standard, Rapid, Blitz) representing their National Federation regardless of their title or rating.

2. 2. Up to 30 players can be nominated by FIDE President.

2. 3. The Organiser is entitled to invite up to 15 additional players of his/her own choice.

[Leonard Barden]

In round one, the top four open GMs (including Carlsen) all failed to win, as did the top seven (!) women (including world champion Ju Wenjun, who drew with a 13-year-old)......

[Mick Norris]

Artemiev and Giri lost too

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Carlsen (after the round 1 draw) won his next four games (including beating the leader, Timur Gareyev, who was on 4/4) to finish on 4.5/5 after the first day's play. Rapport lost to Cheparinov on board 3. Three others make up the leading group on 4.5/5 (Vidit, Erigaisi, and Yu Yangyi).

[LawrenceCooper]

Day two ends with Carlsen, Fedoseev & Yu on 7/9 in the open & Bodnaruk on 7/8, half ahead of Koneru & Zhai on 6.5 in the women's event.

The dress code struck today with a €100 fine for Anna-Maja Kazarian https://twitter.com/AMKazarian/status/1 ... 14/photo/1

[Peter Shaw]

Maybe the wrong place for this, but am I really the only person who thinks the broadcast of these events could be improved dramatically if they just took the very simple step of showing the camera view of the board in full screen and commentated from that? Especially in the closing stages of games when the moves are coming quickly and the electronic board can't keep up.

For example here, the end of Matlakov-Erigaisi. Leko and Naroditsky spend most of the time trying to work out what moves have been played and miss quite a lot of what is actually happening.

It has been clear for the past two days that the electronic board is unreliable, being both out of sync with the video and sometimes taking a minute to update, yet they still are relying on it. When you have a commentator is good as Leko available, this feels like such a waste.

This from almost 10 years ago is so much better. No electronic board. No unnecessary views of the commentators faces. No random switching to weird camera angles. Just a clear view of the players, the board and the clock.

This isn't the first time I have said this, but to me this is so plainly obvious that I find incredible that nobody else seems to feel the same way.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"The dress code struck today with a €100 fine for Anna-Maja Kazarian https://twitter.com/AMKazarian/status/1 ... 14/photo/1
Top"

Who is looking at her feet when she plays? What a daft reason to fine her.

[Paolo Casaschi]

The dress code struck today with a €100 fine for Anna-Maja Kazarian https://twitter.com/AMKazarian/status/1 ... 14/photo/1

This generated a number of notable reactions; the swift action of FIDE on womens' dress code contrasting with the inaction on safeguarding at the same event, for example https://twitter.com/SusanPolgar/status/ ... 3203223923

[LawrenceCooper]

Maybe the wrong place for this, but am I really the only person who thinks the broadcast of these events could be improved dramatically if they just took the very simple step of showing the camera view of the board in full screen and commentated from that? Especially in the closing stages of games when the moves are coming quickly and the electronic board can't keep up.

For example here, the end of Matlakov-Erigaisi. Leko and Naroditsky spend most of the time trying to work out what moves have been played and miss quite a lot of what is actually happening.

It has been clear for the past two days that the electronic board is unreliable, being both out of sync with the video and sometimes taking a minute to update, yet they still are relying on it. When you have a commentator is good as Leko available, this feels like such a waste.

This from almost 10 years ago is so much better. No electronic board. No unnecessary views of the commentators faces. No random switching to weird camera angles. Just a clear view of the players, the board and the clock.

This isn't the first time I have said this, but to me this is so plainly obvious that I find incredible that nobody else seems to feel the same way.

A very valid point and looking at the link from 2014 that you give it is certainly much easier to follow.

Experience seems to have taught us that given live boards don't always keep up then it's better to zoom in on the live board when you are sticking with one game. That is presumably down to the FIDE commentators and their producers at the venue though so chess24 and other off site commentators are probably more limited in what to follow.