Without being among the favourites, six seasoned practitioners bring in a fresh flavour to the penultimate event of the million-dollar Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour.
Such being the scenario on the eve of the $150,000 Legends of Chess event, beginning on Tuesday, the point of interest will be whether at least one of the ‘legends’ deny the four younger players from monopolising the semifinal-spots.
If Magnus Carlsen (aged 29), Anish Giri (26), Ding Liren (27) and Ian Nepomniachtchi (30) advance following a nine-round preliminary phase, it will be a repeat line-up of the Chessable Master held earlier this month.
Even if one, among Viswanathan Anand (50), Vladimir Kramnik (45), Boris Gelfand (52), Vassily Ivanchuk (51), Peter Svidler (44) and Peter Leko (40) makes it to the semifinals, it will be big news.
Anand starts his campaign as favourite against eight-time Russian champion Peter Svidler.
He meets the young quartet of Carlsen, Giri, Nepomniachtchi and Liren in alternate rounds. Since Anand plays Gelfand and Ivanchuk spread over the last three rounds, he can change gears, if required, in order to reach the semifinals.
The winner of this event will qualify for the four-man $300,000 Grand Final scheduled from August 9 to 20. So far, Carlsen (two titles) and Daniil Dubov (one) have made the cut. Should this event throw up a new champion, then the fourth spot could go to Hikaru Nakamura, who heads the points-tally for non-winners for now.
On Tuesday, much of the focus will be on the Carlsen-Giri clash. Besides their form, the other factor that gets them all the attention from the chess world is their much-followed battle of wits on social media. In what promises to reproduce the thrills seen in the final of Chessable Masters earlier this month, a fast-improving Giri will be looking to avenge the recent loss.
First-round pairings:
Viswanathan Anand (India)-Peter Svidler (Russia); Anish Giri (the Netherlands)-Magnus Carlsen (Norway); Vladimir Kramnik (Russia)-Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia); Peter Leko (Hungary)-Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine); Boris Gelfand (Israel)-Ding Liren (China).