The World Rapid Chess Championship will be live all day long on the pages of Chessdom.com. After the Semi Finals Day 1 and Semi Finals day 2 , the opening ceremony took place, Magnus Carlsen and Veselin Topalov gave a press conference, Boris Gelfand visited the local chess alley, and multiple other parallel chess events and news happened that will be presented and later frequently updated during the day.
Live games with analysis and more live coverage starts at 11:00 CET. Scroll down for pairings.
Press conference of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov with Magnus Carlsen and Veselin Topalov
FIDE President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and Kazakhstan Chess Federation President, Mr. Aset Isekeshev held a press conference just before the opening ceremony of the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan. Also attending the conference were the tournament number one, GM Magnus Carlsen from Norway, former World Champion Veselin Topalov from Bulgaria and GM Murtas Kazaghalev from Kazakhstan along with other FIDE and Local Federation officials. FIDE President thanked the Kazakhstan Chess Federation for the commitment they made to these events and this was a first in chess history as these events were organized together. The Kazakhstan Chess Federation President was very pleased to host the events and welcomed all the Grandmasters to Kazakhstan. he also introduced the young girl stars who had won world championships for Kazakhstan and were promising a very bright future for local chess. The players also thanked the organizers and promised to provide some exciting chess and to fight for the first place. Journalists present then asked some questions relating to GM Carlsen’s new rating high and also regarding his plans for the World Championship.
Press Conference
Former World Chess Champion GM Veselin Topalov (BUL) answering questions
GM Boris Gelfand visited the local chess alley
GM Boris Gelfand, the finalist of the World Chess Championship 2012, visited the local chess alley in Astana. He talked about the importance of role models in chess giving examples of his meetings with Korchnoi and the Petrosian school in earlier years.
Here is a video of the interview with English subtitles (for all news in Russian regarding the World Rapid see the Russian version of Chessdom)
Pairings round 1
Kazhgaleyev – Carlsen
Svidler – Radjabov
Kurnosov – Ivanchuk
Gelfand – Karjakin
Tkachev – Mamedyarov
Ismagambetov – Dreev
Grischuk – Bologan
Topalov – Morozevich
