Four-star players ready to face world champion Magnus Carlsen
India is all set to dominate the next Meltwater Champions Chess Tour event. Four best young players are taking part in this event. Goldmoney Asian Rapid will carry a prize money of $100,000 (approximately Rs 74 lakh). The play is the seventh leg of the prestigious ATP-style season of online chess organized by the Magnus Group.
Grandmasters Vidit Gujrathi and Adhiban Bhaskaran as well as two of India’s most talented young players, Gukesh D and Arjun Arigasi, have all qualified or been given wild card entries.
It is a matter of pride that four players from India have been invited to the tournament because so far no other country has been invited on this tour. Goldmoney Asian Rapid is a 16-player online rapid chess tournament that begins on June 26 and will last for nine days.
World champion and current Tour leader Magnus Carlsen and top Asian talent will be up to their game. But all eyes will be on 15-year-old Gukesh D from Chennai, who recently qualified after winning the Gelfand Challenge tournament. He will take on Carlsen for the first time in the rapid chess format of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Nashik-born Vidit Gujrathi is India’s No. 3 player and enjoys a huge fan following among Indian chess lovers.
The 17-year-old Arigasi would also be hoping to achieve success at the top level and Bhaskaran would like to showcase his aggressive style that has earned him the nickname of The Beast. Apart from this, the world No. 1 female player, Hou Yifan of China will become the first female player to take part in the Tour and Saleh Salem will become the first player from the UAE. The theme of the tournament will be Golden Moments of Chess. Roy Sebbagh, CEO, Goldmoney, said that Chess is a wonderful game that expresses the skills, desire and intelligence found in humans. This game has been played for hundreds of years and is moving ahead with its indelible heritage and tradition.
So far, the tour has achieved 90 million live broadcast views across online streaming platforms and a record-breaking 283K peak viewership for a professional chess tournament. Goldmoney Asian Rapid will be broadcast live on Norwegian TV station TV2 and will be streamed on Chase24 India’s YouTube channel with commentary in multiple languages. Highlight will also be available on the Eurosport app in 60 countries. The match will start at the new time of 13:00 to accommodate players in Asia. All matches will be played on Chess24.com Play Zone.
