Chess: Carlsen was disqualified in New York for refusing to take off his jeans | Magnus Carlsen

World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen was disqualified from the World Rapid Chess Championship in New York for a dress code violation by refusing to take off his jeans after being warned. He is also withdrawing from the World Blitz, which begins on December 30th.

Fide explained their decision in a statement, while Carlsen said: “I said I will change tomorrow… but they said you have to change now, it became a matter of principle for me, so here we are!” Honestly am I was too old to care too much at this point. If that’s what they want to do, I’ll probably head somewhere where the weather is a little nicer.”

At the time of his retirement, Carlsen had scored 5/8 points and was a point and a half behind the leaders, giving him little chance of retaining his title.

After eight of the 13 rounds, Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), Arjun Erigaisi (India) and Alexander Grischuk (Russia) were leading with 6.5/8. The nine players on 6/8 include 18-year-old Russian Volodar Murzin, who defeated No. 2 seed and US champion Fabiano Caruana, and world No. 3 and speed specialist Hikaru Nakamura.

The opening rounds of the 11-round Women’s World Rapid were a triumph for rising US star Alice Lee, 15, who won all four of her games and was the sole leader. However, Lee, who made a splash last year, lost in a deciding pair in the fifth round to the top seed and reigning women’s world champion, China’s Ju Wenjun.

After six of the eleven rounds, Ju had 5.5/6, half a point ahead of Alexandra Kosteniuk (Switzerland) and Kateryna Lagno (Russia), with Lee in the chasing group at 5/6.

The 182-strong field for the World Rapid/Blitz includes 30 Americans, while China takes the top three places in the Women’s World Rapid/Blitz with 113 participants. The total prize money is $1 million for the open rapid and blitz tournaments, including $428,500 for the two women’s events.

This is the first time that the popular World Speed ​​Championships will be held on American soil, let alone in the center of the international financial world. Rapid chess is defined as 15 minutes per player per game, plus an allowance of 10 seconds per move from the first move, while blitz is three minutes per player per game, plus two seconds per move.

Carlsen has already won five world rapid chess and seven world blitz competitions in his illustrious career, winning both titles in 2022 and 2023. The list of his life’s victories is impressively long and underlines the task that lies ahead of the new classical world champion Gukesh Dommaraju. The 18-year-old from India, who is not competing in New York, wants to match the Norwegian’s successes.

Carlsen’s chess CV lists 64 major titles, all but nine of which are listed on the board. Gukesh has only won six so far – a world title, a Candidates, three Olympic gold medals and a Fide Circuit, albeit with an age advantage of 16 years.

Rapid is now Carlsen’s favorite format and last week he scored again on the Champions Tour, where most events took place online while the eight-player final was played in Oslo.

It ended with a final between Carlsen and his old rival Ian Nepomniachtchi, whom he defeated in the 2021 world title fight, with the sixth game lasting 136 moves, the longest in the history of the world championship. This time the result was much quicker as Carlsen won 4-1, including a 23-move blow in the final game.

Carlsen is always alert to new developments and his 7 a3 repeated Gukesh’s novelty against Ding Liren from game 13 of the Fide world title game in Singapore, a draw in which the teenager overlooked a victory.

Nepomniachtchi distinguished himself from Ding by castling early, but he lacked the power of the rook-raising 17 Rh3! This is an old and powerful strategy against the French, which reminds me of the shock I experienced as a black man in London against Oliver Penrose in 1948. Here White’s attack on the king quickly proved that the Russian queen’s trip on the opposite side was irrelevant, and Carlsen’s final 23. Qg6! created the irrevocable threat of Ng5 and Qh7 checkmate.

The World Rapid began on Thursday and continues on Friday and Saturday at 19:00 GMT. You can watch the game for free with grandmaster and computer commentary and reviews on lichess.org and other major chess sites.

Between the three-day, 13-round Rapid tournament on December 26th and 28th and the two-day Blitz on December 30th and 31st, Fide organized the Wall Street Gambit, a conference exploring the fusion of chess and finance.

Its highlight will be a keynote address by renowned economist and GM Kenneth Rogoff, who will discuss chess, AI and economics. Caruana and India’s former world champion Vishy Anand will be present. Standard tickets cost $1,000, while VIP tickets for $5,000, which include a blitz game and selfies with Caruana, have already sold out.

No British players traveled to the World Rapid/Blitz due to the high cost and low chances of winning. For England’s experts, the annual £10,000 Caplin Hastings Masters from December 28th to January 5th is the event of the moment. More than 100 entries range from at least seven over 2500 grandmasters to a long tail where more than half of the field has a rating below 2000.

England’s youngest ever GM, 15-year-old Shreyas Royal, is the top seed for the domestic side, while a likely candidate for an international title is 21-year-old FM Alex Golding, who already has two IM norms and a rating of 2400+ has just won the traditional pre-Christmas blitz tournament in Richmond at Orleans Park School from over 100 entries.

3952: 1 Nh6+ Kf8 2 Nf5! (Threat 3 Rh8 mate) g6 3 Qh6+ Kg8 4 Qh7+ Kf8 5 Qh8+! Bxh8 6 Rxh8 mate. Black can sacrifice his bishops and his queen on g2 and f2, but this only delays mate.