St. Louis Rapid & Blitz Underway
First the rapid, then the blitz, and then the Sinquefield Cup.
It’s the time of the year when the chess world’s attention turns to St. Louis, starting with the St. Louis Rapid & Blitz. Not all the world’s best are there - we’re missing world #1 Magnus Carlsen, World Champion Ding Liren, winning Candidate Dommaraju Gukesh, and world #4 Arjun Erigaisi aren’t there, but the field is nevertheless not be sneezed at.
The three players who came half a point behind Gukesh at the Candiates are all there - world #2 Hikaru Nakamura, #3 Fabiano Caruana, and #5 Ian Nepomniachtchi - along with their fellow Candidates Alireza Firouzja and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. World #7 Nodirbek Abdusattorov is also playing; likewise Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and the United States’ #3-5 players - Wesley So, Leinier Dominguez, and Levon Aronian, respectively - make up the rest of the field.
Today, tomorrow, and Wednesday they’ll duke it out in a rapid round-robin, playing three games a day, and then on Thursday and Friday they’ll play a double round-robin (one r-r per day). After that they’ll have the weekend off and start the Sinquefield Cup, which is a classical round robin. That will be the last major event until the Olympics start on September 10.
The event has been well-contested so far: after two rounds no one is 2-0 and no one is 0-2. I intend to have a day 1 report later tonight.