Carlsen you are the best, thanks for promoting chess this way, Very exciting!

It will be a very exciting game. Online games featuring world's best against rest of the world proved succesful and exciting in the past, so it will be very good for the chess world.

wow is chess coming back to life or what? great!

Sounds like something already done on Dutch radio for years... :-)

But it's a nice way to promote chess!

How do you register for it?

Am I the only one who dislikes using the term, "World Number One" for the highest rated player? Unlike tennis and golf, chess has a world champion (finally an undisputed one), and I think "World Number One" should be reserved for the world champion, not for the top-rated player.

If not for the pre-selected human GM panel, this could easily have been the "GM Magnus Carlsen VS The World-Using-the-Latest-Chess-Engines-and-Databases-on-Multicore-Computers" Challenge which could have led to a predictable epic failure.

@Peter
I understand your question, but when you are number one by more than 20 rating points, not a couple, it's hard to avoid some kind of description. I myselft prefer teh #1 or the highest ratede player, but I guess the organisers want to optimize their project so World Number One, sounds better. but it may give wrong connotations.

@Jon
What if their ratings became only a few points apart - would that change your view? Anyway, I recall in the 1980s when Kasparov surpassed Karpov in ratings because of his incredible tournament wins. They both played for the Sovient Union in the chess olympiad, and people wondered who would play first board. Kasparov played second board while Karpov played first board, maybe it was out of respect that Karpov was still the world champion. I just think the world champion should mean the world number one, and Carlsen could be called World Top Rated, World Highest Rated, World Number One Rated, or something like that.

Jake C: don't forget about the big drawback of these "...against the World" matches that the many thousands of votes will result in an average good looking move and the ingenious ideas are always supressed. Therefore "THE WORLD" never has a chance while ONE average player with a good computer might have...

This is a one day event and I don't think that has been the case for the previous internet voting matches. I also think the combination of expertice (Naka, Judit an Vachier-Lagrave suggesting move-options) and the knowledge of the masses can be a suprisingly strong one. Very interesting experiment!

Peter,

The link "Here you can enter" isn't helpful, since on their website you can only give your email for "more information", and there is so far no information available on many points.
Could you please check the following in case you have any direct communication with them?

what time is the game going to start? How long will it last? Is there time control?
How can one register to participate?
Will the participants be only online, or also at the Cooper Star Hotel? (preferably the latter is a possibility. If not, is it possible to be present there as a spectator?)
Will the three advisors of the World Team be present at the hotel as well?
How are they going to prevent computer assistance?

Thanks,
b3wins

I think its really great that magnus and the RAW team are promoting chess like this!!!!! This is the spirit XXI chess needs!

I asked (and got) some more information. Will publish it at a later stage. There will be a website to enter soon.

Thousands of votes do NOT necessarily lead to "average good looking moves". Research in this area may surprise you; there is real wisdom in crowds, and it may appear in this game.