NICK BARNETT CHESS

BY THE time you read this, the World Chess Championship 2018 will be under way in London, having started on the 9th. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana will have played the first of the 12-game match, organized by FIDE and its commercial partner Agon, at The College in Holborn. It will end on the 28th of November. The two combatants have been under scrutiny for the last year, but perhaps none as much as Caruana whose inch by inch improvement has brought him within 3 FIDE rating points of Carlsen at 2835.

It is an indication of the interest the country has in their American GM, that Time magazine of the 6th of November, featured an article entitled ‘This Kid From Brooklyn Could Return America to Chess Dominance for the First Time Since Bobby Fischer’. It goes on ‘Chess rarely attracts much mainstream attention in the United States. But chess pundits expect that a Caruana victory could spark an explosion in chess interest America hasn’t seen since Fischer’s heyday.’

For both Caruana and Carlsen (and most modern chess professionals), keeping physically and mentally fit forms part of the training. Carlsen is laid back, sharing his sense of humour on his timeline with a rather impressive video of himself skiing, inviting captions for a photo of Caruana in chef’s outfit and a video of his team eating pizza, playing poker and watcher soccer.

Caruana talks of playing games for up to eight hours a day. ‘The goal is get you thinking about chess 24/7 in preparation for the match; it’s playing quick games, slow games, anything that will get you in that mode where you calculate very quickly. Your mind is working in the best possible shape.’ Thinking chess 24/7 is what Carlsen was doing recently when he was taken by another interviewer up in the London eye where one can have a birds-eye views of the city. For the half hour ride, Carlsen never looked at the view and admitted he was thinking about moves!

Mark Crowther, editor of the U.k.-based ‘The Week In Chess’ is quoted as saying ‘Fabiano has the power to be better than Carlsen. There have been very, very few players you can say that about. I honestly don’t know who’s going to win this match. It’s a total toss-up.’

To watch the The funny hyped-up promo video on Youtube, search for: 2018 World Chess Championship Match | PROMO VIDEO

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