Norway Chess 2022 is going to take place May 31st to June 10th in Stavanger. It is going to be a 10 player round robin with Magnus Carlsen (who recently won Airthings Masters and Charity Chess Cup), Wesley So (recent winner of Grand Prix Berlin), Shakhriyar Mammedyarov (semifinalist of the Grand Prix Berlin), Maxime-Vachier Lagrave (the winner of Grand Chess Tour Romania 2022), Viswanathan Anand (who shined in the Grand Chess Tour Poland 2022), Anish Giri, Teimour Radjabov, Veselin Topalov, Wang Hao.
The 10-players field was supposed to be closed with Richard Rapport, but he decided to withdraw from the event a few days before its beginning. A day after the information about Rapport’s withdrawal was announced, the breaking news was revealed – Rapport changes federation to Romania. Rapport will compete in the FIDE Candidates Chess Tournament 2022 in mid-June, and possibly looks for calmer preparation for his most important event in 2022. The organizers of the Norway Chess 2022 have secured a replacement for Rapport – the Norwegian grandmaster, Aryan Tari.
“It is unfortunate that Rapport will not be part of the tournament this year, especially since it’s our 10 year anniversary tournament and it’s just about to start. We are lucky to have found a replacement player, just days before the tournament starts. We look forward to welcoming Tari back to Norway Chess.” stated Norway Chess in the official press release.
Aryan Tari commented: “I’m really looking forward to playing Norway Chess again, and it feels extra special that it’s the 10 year anniversary this year! A very interesting field, where there are several players I haven’t played against before, which makes it very fun.”.
The event is right around the corner; with the opening ceremony on Monday May 30th followed by a round robin blitz tournament (start 18:00 CEST) that will decide the pairings for the classical tournament that starts on Tuesday, May 31st from 17:00 CEST. LIVE games will be broadcasted daily on Chessdom.com
Norway Chess 2022 is an interesting mixture of the top players, current and ex world champions, future stars and the only two 40+ year old players above 2700 in the FIDE rating list. Norway Chess was one of the first events to publicly announce it will not invite Sergey Karjakin due to his public comments, which was followed by a FIDE ban. All information about the Norway Chess 2022 can be found here
