<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>FIDE</span></p><p class="caption">World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Current World Chess Champion Magus Carlsen of Norway will defend his title against a new challenger, Russia's Sergey Karjakin, in New York City starting on November 11, with games running through November 30, if needed.</p><p>It's the first time the World Chess Championship has been contested in New York since 1995, when then World Champion took Garry Kasparov took on Viswanathan Anand. Kasparov won that match, but Anand would go on to capture the title five times - and face Carlsen in the last two WCCs.</p><p>The big disappointment for the United States this time around is that in the 2016 Candidates Tournament, held to determine Carlsen's opponent for the WCC, not one but two Americans were in the running: Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. </p><p>Caruana brought it right down to the wire, losing a must-win match against Karjakin and in the process putting the Russian opposite Carlsen to fight for the 2016 title. A big missed opportunity, given that Caruana has posted good results against Carlsen and has often been discussed as a potential World Champion. But Caruna didn't dwell on the critical loss; he came back to the US from Moscow to win the US Championship in convincing fashion.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Alina L'Ami</span></p><p class="caption">Caruana got close.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>I talked to him briefly this summer prior to the Sinquefield Cup, a top professional even held annually at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, which has become the Yankee Stadium of American chess.</p><p>"It didn't work out," he said of his effort at the Candidates, deploying the easygoing humility for which he has become known in the edgy and at times cutthroat world of big-time pro chess.</p><p>Although Caruana did go almost all the way, he admitted that he "wasn't prepared well enough before the Candidates Tournament."</p><p>"I needed more more stamina," he said.</p><p>The show must go on, and Karjakin, the world's number 9 nine ranked player with a rating of 2772, it at 26 the youngest opponent Carlsen, 25, has faced for a title challenge (Anand was in his forties). Carlsen is the number one player in the world, with a rating of 2853. By that tale of the tape, Kajakin should lose, but he does have a decent record against Carlsen, and the two men grew up playing against each other.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>World Chess</span></p><p class="caption">Sergey Karjakin, the challenger.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>"Magnus is a little bit slow in the beginnings," said Ilya<span> Merenzon, CEO of Agon, the company that's organizing the 2016 WCC for the game's governing body, FIDE. </span></p><p>"Sergey will try to beat him in the opening, the hold on for dear life. Expect some fireworks. Both players will try to come up with really cool openings." (Openings are the deeply studied first moves in a chess match.)</p><p><span>Merenzon added that Karjakin has the entire Russian chess machine behind him - and it is a formidable apparatus. </span></p><p><span>"The t</span>op players in the world are going to working with him. It's an arms race now, and I know how big the teams are - they're massive."</p><p>The match will consist of a planned 12 games (with tie-breaks thereafter) and be held at the Fulton Market in the South Street Seaport. According to <span>Merenzon, there will be VIP access for the live event, alongside regular ticketing, but there will also be some innovative online broadcast options, including multiple cameras and virtual reality. </span></p><p><span>The idea is to take a sport that's difficult to watch and understand - WCC-level games can consume many hours, during which time spectators are watching the players silently think - and transform it into something more thrilling.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AGON</span></p><p class="caption">The Fulton Market will be the venue.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span><span>Merenzon stressed that the organizers want to increase the "drama and intensity" so that the WCC feels like a major sporting event - like the "most important thing in the world," he said.</span></span></p><p><span><span>"We're taking from boxing and from entertainment," he said. "It's going to be a show - it's going to emotions."</span></span></p><p><span>Agon's broadcast deal is exclusive and restricts access to the actual moves of the game for a defined period of time, a controversial policy, but one that the chess world was introduced to before the Candidates. </span></p><p>The cost for the WCC package will be $15 for whole match, "less than a movie," Merenzon said.</p><p>The preparation of the venue will come down to the wire. A WCC requires a very specific arrangement for players and spectators, and according to Merenzon, that means the work, costing $2 million, will be completed "very last minute - a couple of days before the event."</p><p>That said, Carlsen and his entourage have already checked out the space and, Merenzon said, approved of it. As far as notable fans go, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are reportedly planning to be in New York for the match.</p><p>New York is a great chess city, going back over a century and running right through the difficult career of the last American World Champion, Bobby Fischer, who grew up in Brooklyn. The 1995 WCC was held at the World Trade Center, so it's appropriate that the 2016 match will be held nearby, in lower Manhattan. </p><p>There is a whiff of the old Cold War tension, as well. Carlsen is the first World Champion from the West since Fischer, and Karjakin was in favor of Russian annexation of the Crimea in 2014, the Guardian reported. The prize money is significant, as well, if a bit fuzzy: it should be something like $1 million.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-case-daylight-saving-time-2016-11">Here's why we should just scrap daylight-saving time already </a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="B1cWl4MTE6b0KeSK8DH8dNOG_rvf1EBl" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Magnus Carlsen will defend his World Chess Championship crown next week in New York City

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Irina Krush win her seventh US Chess Championship the past weekend in St. Louis. In doing so, she notched her fourth consecutive US title and became without question the best American woman player of her generation and, really, in history.</p><p>It didn't come easy for Krush. Although she was the only Grandmaster in the women's side of the 12-player, 11-round tournament, she slipped back in the standings early and had to win four games in a row to set up a opportunity to snag the title with a draw in her final game (with the white pieces) against Katerina Nemcova.</p><p>In retrospect, however, Krush's win was easier than her victory last year, when she defended her title in tie-breaker rounds.</p><p>This year, her run began with a decisive win over Annie Wang, the youngest player in the field at age 12. Wang became a Master at age 11, a pretty stunning achievement. Her presence in the US Championship was extra-special for me because she's from Southern California - where my I and my family used to live - and has worked with worked with an organization there called Beyond Chess that my son, James, has also spent some time with.</p><p>But she was no match for Krush, who won her first US Championship when she was 14, making her the youngest woman winner ever. Krush commented that she'd like to keep on competing, perhaps challenging the record of Gisela Gresser, a 9-time champion, with titles in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. </p><p>Interestingly, while there are many more male GMs and highly ranked male players, we now have plenty of women in the game - and no reason why over time women and men couldn't more frequently play each other at the top levels. In some tournaments, they already do (Krush's GM title, by the way, is the equivalent of a man's - she isn't a "Woman Grandmaster" of WGM, due her high rating, and its worth noting that the GM title has been gender-neutral for decades).</p><p>Krush's comment about Gresser was classy and demonstrated the Ukranian-born GM's grasp of chess history (she came to the US when she was 4 and now hails from Brooklyn). Of course, women's chess in Krush era is a lot more demanding that when Gresser played - the talent pool is deeper, players start a lot younger, the coaching is more intense, and computer analysis enables players to far more deeply prepared than in the past. </p><p>For Krush, now 31, the obvious question is, "Can she contend for the World Championship crown?" That title is currently held by <span> </span>Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine, although she captured it through a "knock-out" tournament format that saw the previous World Champ, Hou Yifan of China, decline to play.</p><p>Krush is in the top 30 in the world, but although women's chess has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade, there isn't as well-established a global circuit for female players as there is for men. Krush is known for her contributions to U.S. international team titles, but her ranking is also significantly below that of the women in the world top 10.</p><p>In the US Championship, held at the stupendous Chess Club &amp; Scholastic Center of St. Louis, Krush stumbled early, with a loss to Nazi Paikidze, a 21-year-old who ended up in second-place tie (Paikidze is from for former Soviet republic of Georgia and only switched her affiliation recently when she came to US to play for the powerhouse chess team at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County). </p><p>I won't go through the entire game, just show the final position. There wasn't much Krush could do about that phalanx of white pawns marching down the center of the board - especially given that her black rook on a6 is unable to move across the 6th rank:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Obviously, Krush cut a swath through much of the rest of the field, but she did get outmaneuvered by Paikidze, something that doesn't fit Krush's style, which is to play powerful chess, exerting strategic dominance over her opponents while looking for tactical possibilities.</p><p>She might have missed her longtime rival, Anna <span>Zatonskih, but she won the tournament by a full point (8.5/11), vindicated her ranking and position in the field as the favorite, and bolstered her legend.</span></p><p><span>But don't think she's some kind of scary juggernaut. Although she's intimidating, she has a shaggy, slightly punk edge, a pile of not-always-too-carefully arranged hair spilling everywhere and a fashion sense that suggests a Sleater-Kinney groupie more than a Chess Life cover girl (which doesn't mean she can't pull off a dress with aplomb - see below). She is, in a word, cool.</span></p><p><span>And with her win in St. Louis, she's the best female American chess player we've even seen.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></p><p> </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-sex-happy-couples-have-every-month-relationships-science-2015-3">Here's how much sex happy couples have every month</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="kzam9yczoRday4iMwxqmAYMJtrg2etNb" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

This woman just became the greatest American female chess player in history

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ray Morris-Hill</span></p><p class="caption">The first-round game between Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave ended in a draw.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The <a href="http://www.londonchessclassic.com/">London Chess Classic</a> in underway in England and will continue until Dec. 13. This is one of the chess world's premier events, usually attracting all the top players, but this year it's extra-special.</p><p>That's because it's the culmination of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-important-chess-tournament-in-us-history-is-about-to-kick-off-in-st-louis-2015-8">Chess Grand Tour</a>, a brand-new, high-level <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-top-chess-players-have-just-formed-a-new-1-million-professional-tour-2015-4">$1-million series</a> of tournaments. The tour kicked off at the beginning of the year with Norway Chess, played in the home country of current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen (it was won by former World Champion Veselin Topalev of Hungary). Over the summer, the tour pulled into St. Louis and the center of American chess, the Chess Club and Scholastic Center, for the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/something-incredibly-rare-happened-at-the-biggest-chess-tournament-in-us-history-2015-9">Sinquefield Cup</a>, won by Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian.</p><p>Going into London, <a href="http://grandchesstour.com/tour-standings">no obviously winner for the Big Title has come to the fore</a>, although the US number one and world number 3 Hikaru Nakamura has finished third in the first two events and is now in second overall. Carlsen is in third overall, while <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-is-about-to-become-a-chess-powerhouse-thanks-to-this-22-year-old-2015-5">Fabiano Caruana</a> - a young player often named as a future Carlsen challenger for the world title - is pretty far back in the field, in eighth place.</p><p>The London event is hugely important because it represents the culmination of the the first serious effort to bring all the best chess players in the world together for a big-money contest that can signal a challenge to the World Championship cycle, which commences early next year with the Candidates Tournament. The winner of that event will face Carlsen to battle for the World Championship. The past two times around, it's been won by former World Champ Vishy Anand of India, who's also in the Grand Chess Tour field.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Alina L'Ami</span></p><p class="caption">Fabiano Caruana, a young American challenger to Carlsen.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Corruption</h2><p>Many chess experts and observers consider the World Championship, as it's currently managed by chess's governing body, FIDE, to be a deeply corrupt affair that's controlled by the Russian chess elite and cronies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.</p><p>The Grand Chess Tour, meanwhile, was organized in part by former World Champ Garry Kasparov, and of course we all know how he feels about Putin. He also ran for President of FIDE in 2014 and was beaten out by incumbent <span>Kirsan Ilyumzhinov</span>. So he moved forward with his efforts to create in the WCT a viable alternative to the WCC. Although he won't specifically cast what he's up to in those terms. The WCC after all is a multi-game affair (as FIDE now operates it) with only two player duking it out over several weeks. The WCT is tournament chess, but because it covers three events and puts the top guys over the board repeatedly, it's designed to find out who the best player is over a given span of time.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Chess Club &amp; Scholastic Center of St. Louis</span></p><p class="caption">Kasparov of GM Nigel Short announcing the Grand Chess Tour.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>I spoke to Kasparov around the time of the Sinquefield Cup - named for retired financier Rex Sinquefield, who is almost singlehandedly transforming St. Louis into a global mecca for chess - and he seemed delighted at how the Tour was coming together. His ultimate stated goal is to professionalize the game, along the lines of other big-time sports, and attract the types of major sponsors who want nothing to do with the WCC cycle. </p><p><span>"Garry does have an agenda, and it's very clearly not with the establishment," said Grandmaster Maurice Ashley, a chess commentator and tournament organizer, when I spoke with him during the Sinquefield Cup.</span></p><h2><span>Slow times in London Town</span></h2><p>So far, the London tournament has started off in slow fashion. Two rounds in, only the young Dutch GM Anish Giri has won a game. The rest have been draws. </p><p>A lot of chess observers complain that there are too many draws in top-level chess. However, some of the draws can be chalked up to the ability of players to extensively study and prepare openings that are by their nature drawish.</p><p>That's what happened in Round 2, in a game between Carlsen and Caruana. Every major encounter between these two is closely watched as a potentially preview of a future WCC.</p><p>Carlsen was playing white, and he opened with the the deeply studied Ruy Lopez, one of the Cadillac openings at the GM level. I've <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/magnus-carlsen-is-in-great-shape-after-game-1-of-the-world-chess-championship-2014-11">covered the Ruy Lopez before</a>, but briefly, you can see that white uses his bishop to challenge black's knight on the c6 square. The idea is straightforward: white wants to (possibly) trade the bishop for the knight, inflicting doubled pawns on black on the c-file, a liability if all the pieces are traded off and the battle goes into an endgame. </p><p>Other stuff can happen, however. And at GM level play, rather than black accepting white's plan and taking on the doubled pawns, he can employ the Berlin Defense by playing his knight out to f6. For GMs, this move now sends the game in a drawish direction, thanks the the efforts of Vladimir Kramnik, who was credited with using the Berlin as a "drawing weapon" as black in his 2000 World Championship match against Kasparov.</p><p>And here we see it yet again in the Carlsen-Caruana game in London:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>ChessBase</span></p><p class="caption">The Berlin Defense.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>I honestly don't know why anyone plays the Berlin against Carlsen, because the World Champ is such a fantastic endgame player. And wouldn't you know it, after 30 moves he managed to make things interesting, by getting his d-pawn all the way up the board to the d6 square, where, guarded by the white king, it function like a dagger into black's position. The risk for Carlsen is that his king is exposed to a back-rank checkmate, boxed in by a defensive screen of three pawns.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>ChessBase</span></p><p class="caption">How to deal with that white d-pawn?</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Caruana has to play sharp chess to deal with the threat, which he did, eventually finding a way to create a perpetual check on the white king by sacrificing a rook. </p><h2>Carlsen's pattern</h2><p>The thing to note about this game is that Carlsen is developing a pattern in ostensibly drawish openings, at last as far as I can tell. He strives to create an advanced pawn, forcing black in this case with the Berlin to make a lot of very accurate decisions at a point in the game when the calculations are difficult and time pressure could be building up. In fact, in a lot of the games of Carlsen that I've looked at over the past year or so, he's jammed a pawn into his opponent's position and compelled the other guy to figure out how to deal with it. </p><p>This isn't really a subtle thing to do, but it does allow Carlsen to avoid falling into some the theoretical battles that don't always work out in his favor - for example, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/anand-crushes-carlsen-and-wins-game-3-of-the-world-chess-championship-2014-11">this game against Anand in the most recent WCC</a>.</p><p>Regardless, I'm still pretty depressed whe I see an 1. e4 e5 opening that heads for the Ruy and the Berlin in GM play. I'd much rather see 1. d4 with a Queen's Gambit Declined setup, a very positional and strategic choice that can nonetheless lead to some beautiful chances for white; or a good old-fashioned Sicilian Defense from black, with 1... c5 played to counter 1. e4. </p><p>And, interestingly, the only player in London who has gone for the Sicilian this far was Carlsen, in round one against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France. But that game ended in a draw.</p><p>Anyway, stay tuned. In about a week, we'll have a Grand Chess Tour Champ who can (maybe) stand up next to the World Champ. And he may be the same guy!</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/police-officers-buy-boy-xbox-2015-12">Police officers bought an 11-year-old boy a brand new Xbox after his was stolen</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="gzdXRieTpef9qyyVxdrzXzAcb0w-l130" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "Hikaru Nakamura" and got 3 results

Magnus Carlsen will defend his World Chess Championship crown next week in New York City

Matthew DeBord

This woman just became the greatest American female chess player in history

Matthew DeBord

The most important chess tournament in decades is happening right now in London

Matthew DeBord