Pragg in Prague
Would changing my first name to "Vike" get me an invite to Tata Steel?
The Prague International Chess Festival is underway, with round 1 transpiring as I type this. It’s a 10-player round robin with a classical time control featuring a strong and appealing field. The round 1 pairings look like this:
Chithambaram Aravindh (2729) - Thai Dai Van Nguyen (2668)
Sam Shankland (2670) - Ediz Gurel (2624)
Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (2741) - David Navara (2677)
Le Quang Liem (2739) - Anish Giri (2728)
Vincent Keymer (2731) - Wei Yi (2755)
Rapid chess is more spectator friendly, but it’s nice to have the top players fighting it out in slow time controls as well - we get to see their deepest ideas and not just, er, praguematic praggmatic pragmatic ones.