Zurich Chess Challenge 2014 begins at Hotel Savoy

Chess Blog for Daily Chess News and Trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2014

Hello everyone,

The Zurich Chess Challenge 2014 started on Wednesday 29th January at Hotel Savoy in Zurich, Switzerland. After the opening ceremony, a round robin blitz tournament was held to determine the starting numbers. Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian scored 3/5, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana and Vishwanathan Anand had 2,5/5 each, while Boris Gelfand finished on 1,5/5. The first round pairings are Carlsen - Gelfand, Aronian - Anand and Nakamura - Caruana.

With six participants it is the first tournament in the history of chess to reach category 23 with an amazing average rating of 2801.

The six-player field is topped by World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen. It takes place in Zurich’s Hotel Savoy at the initiative of Oleg Skvortsov and the Zurich Chess Club. The Classical tournament is an all-play-all event starting at 15:00 CET each day from 30 January- 3 February. The time control is 40 moves/120 min + 20 moves/60 min + 15 min/rest of the game + a 30 sec/move increment from move 61. A rapid game will follow any draw in under 40 moves. (FIDE)

Official website

Replay all the games of the opening blitz with Chess King.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal chess blog
at www.chessqueen.com
Don't miss Chess Queen™
YouTube Channel