E. J. pointed me to this announcement:
For the first time since his retirement in 2005 Garry Kasparov will play chess against some of the best players on the planet.
The 13th world champion agreed to meet the top three finishers of the 2016 U.S. Championship in a blitz tournament. That turned out to be the top three seeds, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So. . . . on Thursday 28 April and Friday 29 April.
Hey, that’s tomorrow!
On both days you can watch the games live on the US Chess Champs website starting from . . . 1:30 pm [eastern time].
At this site it says the games will start at 1pm (and the tournament is in St. Louis, so that’s 2pm eastern).
I want to watch this! Funny it didn’t get more publicity, given that blitz is the most watchable form of chess and Kasparov is the most famous chess player. I guess there aren’t that many chess fans out there, but still.
P.S. They’re playing 2 games at a time. That doesn’t make sense! The games are only 15 minutes long; why not alternate them so we’re not in the position of trying to watch 2 games at once? Also too bad they’re not playing in the evening when it’s more convenient to watch.
I heard about this and I wonder what the outcome will be. I saw the announcement that you linked. Many commenters think Kasparov can win. Maybe I’ll eat my words, but these are three young players, fully focused on chess, and in superb form. I would be surprised if Kasparov even draws one game.
Hernan:
I know what you mean. That’s one reason why it should be fun to watch. Also the games themselves: blitz is fast enough that you don’t have to wait around for the move, but slow enough that you can try to follow along. Actually, for a high-stakes game where I really care about who will win, I think a 10-minute-each game would be even better because then I wouldn’t have to scramble to keep up.
Hernan:
It looks like you’ll have to eat those words!
Unless I am mistaken Kasparov has a higher elo rating than his competitors!
His rating is out of date though. He’s been in retirement for quite a while.
Thanks for the tip! Kasparov is impressive!
In the end Kasparov did well, and he easily could have ended up in first place if not for some bad (freak?) blunders.