GMs longing for the Hilton in Mainz

The first Chess960 online qualifiers, organized by the Internet Chess Club in conjunction with Chess Tigers (organizers of the popular annual Mainz Chess Classic in Germany), has been a stunning success. All of last week, qualifiers were held on the ICC (and on their new service of World Chess Live), where 959 unique players (1546 in total over 10 events) battled it out for the coveted spots in the 32-player KO final, to be staged 14-15 July on the ICC. Players such as Gata Kamsky, Krishnan Sasikiran, Ivan Sokolov, Kiril Georgiev and Mikheil Mchedlishvili are still in the race for that one round trip ticket to Mainz, including hotel room and breakfast at the Hilton Mainz.

Five players qualified from each of the 6 larger ICC events, 1 from the best cumulative score from all ICC events, and 1 from the 4 smaller WCL events. Of the 32 contesting the finals, 15 are GMs - five being FIDE top 100 players: Gata Kamsky (USA), Krishnan Sasikiran (India), Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands), Kiril Georgiev (Bulgaria) and Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Georgia) - and 11 IMs. The full list:

Chess960 qualifiers

Handle	Real Name	Title	Blitz rating	Qualified by:
DSquared	Dmitry Andreikin	GM	3415	Q1/4
TIGRANO	Tigran L. Petrosyan	GM	3378	Q5/1
K-Georgiev	Kiril Georgiev	GM	3359	Q3/1
mishikoo	Mikheil Mchedlishvili	GM	3333	Q2/4
AlexanderMagnus	Georg Meier	GM	3230	Q6/1
KRASAVCHIK	Safarli Eltaj	IM	3200	Q2/1
VegaSicilia	Ivan Sokolov	GM	3186	Q5/3
Talion	Gata Kamsky	GM	3109	Q4/2
babloo	Sasikiran Krishnan	GM	3078	Q6/3
VerdeNotte	Gawain Jones	GM	3055	Q1/3
PorkChopsTamer	Marek Stryjecki	IM	2968	Q1/5
Imperator15	Yuri Vovk	IM	2936	Q3/4
zdr	Dan Zoler	IM	2875	most points
kanza	Meelis Kanep	GM	2845	Q2/2
engineer78	Yuri Solodovnichenko	GM	2820	Q5/5
NotSoRandom	Jake Kleiman	FM	2819	Q1/1
TRADE	Krikor S. Mekhitarian	IM	2814	Q2/3
StarkL	Lars Stark	FM	2802	Q6/5
CofC-Bercys	Salvijus Bercys	IM	2765	Q4/3
Kgt1	Gaby Livshitz	IM	2751	Q4/1
Rumpel	Vitaly Kunin	GM	2749	Q4/5
Nehedan	Julio Sadorra	FM	2713	Q5/4
TheButcher-Mio	Miodrag Perunovic	IM	2667	WCL winner
taboas	Daniel T. Rodriguez	FM	2635	Q5/2
RENATEX	Renato A.T. Lujan	none	2627	Q3/3
Rogo	Davor Rogic	GM	2613	Q4/4
dinamite	Thaise B. da Silva	none	2609	Q1/2
trail	Luis Galego	IM	2602	Q3/2
MikeHorner	Tomasz Navinsek	FM	2484	Q6/4
landen	Claude Landenbergue	IM	2444	Q2/5
whiteshark	K. Rathnakaran	IM	2125	Q6/2
NoSynapse	Roland Levrand	none	1718	Q3/5

Here’s a game between Irina Sudakova (FIDE rated 2358) with White against Gata Kamsky with Black:

Yes, it’s Chess960, also the qualifiers of course! One of the side-effects is that chess programs and game viewers might have problems with games in which people castle. That’s why the next game, between IM Gawain Jones and GM Kirshnan Sasikiran, had to be given with two different boards. In between, both players castled.

(How did they do this, you might ask. Well, the basic rule in Chess960 is that the king is always positioned between the rooks, but for the rest both rooks and king can be anywhere. Castling always results in the same castling position as in regular chess. So with a rook on b1 and a king on c1, after ‘castling’ White’s king is still on c1 and the rook went from b1 to d1.)

The final of the last 32 players on the ICC will take place on Saturday, July 14th, 14:00 EST, and the final of the last 8 players will take place on Sunday, July 15th, 14:00 EST. The overall winner will receive a round trip ticket, 600 Euro ($811) cash, hotel room and breakfast at the Hilton Mainz Hotel. More info here.