Algorand supports the FIDE Grand Prix

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It seems that the action on the board doesn't stop!

We have had a pretty intense 3 months straight in the chess world: The World Chess Championship, The World Rapid and Blitz Championships at the end of last year, in early January we witnessed the TATA STEEL MASTER and now it is time to set our sights on "THE FIDE GRAND PRIX".

It is very cool to see how these face-to-face tournaments are taking place again after a rather long break due to the pandemic. Certainly chess has not stopped completely as many of the championships were held over the internet on different playing platforms but, let's be honest, there is nothing better than feeling the pieces between your fingers, all that tension present in the room, the sound of the pieces being exchanged. Chess lovers will know what I mean. Well, we have many high level games that promise to be real gems, let's hope that the Grandmasters have had enough time at home to bring the latest preparations to the elite tournaments.

As I mentioned at the beginning last year the World Championship was disputed. As everyone knows Magnus managed to maintain his status as champion with his spectacular win last year. However, we will see if he will be able to keep the throne because the match for the world chess crown is already scheduled for 2023. An important part of this cycle is already taking place. The new challenger of Magnus will be defined in the "Candidates Tournament" which will be played in June. For this tournament, two spots are up for grabs and The FIDE GRAND PRIX will be that ticket for the remaining players. That's right, the two winners will have the opportunity to participate in the candidates tournament, here is the importance and difficulty that the grand prix represents.

If you do not know what exactly this grand prix is, I will explain it to you quickly:

This event is a master chess contest in which the best GMs in the world gather to play a series of tournaments. This year Berlin is the venue for these games. Yes sir, from February 3 to April 4 we will have fire on the 64 squares!

Something very, very important to mention is the support this championship is getting:

The FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022 is supported by Algorand as the Official Blockchain Partner, Kaspersky as the Official Cybersecurity Partner, FIDE Online Arena as the official gaming platform and Prytek as the Technology Transfer Partner of the Series. The official broadcast of the event will be streamed for free at worldchess.com.

This can not go unnoticed. Chess is growing more and more and it is great to see new sponsors joining the sport. When I found out that Algorand was supporting the Grand prix I was very excited as this is a big step forward for chess in general. Blockchain + a thinking game, the best combination ever!

Who will participate in this event?

In short, the best of the best!

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The criteria for selecting the 24 players to participate in the grand prix are related to: the 2021 chess world cup, The FIDE Grand Swiss 2021, the December 2021 Elo list and two guests by the organizer and the FIDE president respectively.

Six spots are destined for those masters who placed between 3rd and 8th place in the 2021 Chess World Cup. Another 6 GMs are players who have placed between 3rd and 8th place in the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2021. The organizer's guest is the amazing Daniil Dubov. Another guest to this party is Hikaru Nakamura who was nominated by the current FIDE president. The 11 other players are taken from the world rating list published in 2021.

As you can see, the world chess is organized in an impeccable way, this format of the game is designed in a strict and rigorous way so that many high level games are played and the winners are worthy to participate in the Candidates Tournament which will give the opportunity to the winner to challenge for the world championship.

Chess is a very competitive sport, with the list of confirmed players it is difficult to predict who will be the two winners of this circuit. One of my favorites was the Chinese player Ding Liren who in more than one game has managed to surprise Magnus Cralsen. The Asian player has a solid style of play, cold as ice but when the time comes he can produce super tactical games with very attractive sacrifices. Unfortunately, at the last minute his participation was compromised, apparently due to health and visa issues.

This is very disappointing for the fans because if he cannot participate in the tournament series it is impossible to think of a Ding vs Magnus match. It is possible that he will play one of the 3 tournaments but realistically with all those beasts it seems impossible for Ding to get in the podium just by playing one tournament.

A similar situation is that of Dmitri Andreikine who will also not be able to play the Grand Prix. Both players will be replaced by GMs Andrey Esipenko and Radoslaw Wojtaszek.

With all these changes in the list of players we have as "favorites" according to the rating Levon Aronnian from Armenia but who recently is playing for the USA, the Dutch Anish Giri and Wesley So from the Philippines but who has been playing for the USA flag for several years. All these players have an Elo of 2772 points.

As I commented in a previous post, each of these grandmasters have a good chance of winning, the competition is very close. In the next few days we will see how it all evolves.

You can take at look at Official websiteof this event to know more about it

Thanks for getting to this point of the article, I really appreciate your visit, let me know in the comments what you think of this grand prix, who do you think will win the championship?

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