Earlier this morning I decided to check out yesterday’s “Ultimate Moves” action from St. Louis (you can watch it here), and did so. The games were interesting, and somewhat unusually not really messed up by Rex Sinquefield and his son - or this year, by Rex Sinquefield and John Beckstead (who will be on the St. Louis club’s board). The way it works is that all the players who will be participating in the Chess960 event starting today are divided into two teams: five on Sinquefield’s team and five on Beckstead’s. They played a four-game match, with colors switching after each of the 10’ (+ increment) games, and players tag in after five moves. Sinquefield and Beckstead play the first five moves of the game, and then they are replaced by a GM for the next five moves, then the next pair of GMs makes the next five moves, etc., until move 31 when it’s time for Sinquefield and Beckstead to make the next five moves, and so on. Those gentlemen are most certainly amateur players, but what was nice is that ultimately all four games were decided by what happened with the grandmasters. Watch if you dare.
Anyway, when I started watching that event on YouTube, the “suggested” videos included this, from Chess.com’s “Global Championship”. Apparently it’s at the round of 64 and this particular video just went through three of 32 matches, but with Ding Liren and Vladimir Kramnik as two of the six featured players you might find it worth your while.