Controversial 21-year-old American Hans Niemann is in London this week to continue his “Niemann vs. the World” series, in which he takes on European grandmasters, with a match against England's number one and former Russian Nikita Bitchugov.
Niemann won the first classic game in 48 moves on Wednesday morning, using a brilliant strategic attack in the style of Anatoly Karpov. But in the second game, after getting into a winning position, he missed two easy tactical shots and had to settle for a rook draw. The third and fourth games on Thursday also ended in draws after evenly matched play.
The $20,000 prize pool features six classic games (starting at 10am and 4pm) from Wednesday to Friday, six rapid games (starting at 6pm) on Saturday and 12 blitz games (starting at 6pm) on Sunday. Playing at the Gem Fitzrovia Hotel on Bolsover Street, the matches are free to watch and are also streamed live on lichess, with hundreds of viewers tuning in each day.
3933: Josef Dorfman vs. Vitaly Tszeshkovsky, USSR Championship 1978. Black moves and wins.
Guardian reader Mike Gunn went to watch the match and was appointed assistant umpire (he is a qualified Fide national umpire). He wrote: “The match room was an air-conditioned conference room in the basement of the hotel, with seating for 40 spectators. There were no viewing screens or wall panels, and spectators watched mainly from the side and had to stand up to get a good view of the board.”
The first game had to be scored on a Dutch scoresheet, but I bought some English scoresheets at a nearby chess and bridge store in time for the second game.The few spectators, most of them young people, were not taking part in the league or tournament, but were cheering on Niemann's match at X.
Vityugov arrived five to 10 minutes before kick-off, Niemann just a minute before, and both players were scanned with hand scanners before the match and escorted to the toilet with the scanner by head umpire Frans Peeters, a Dutchman.
Vitchugov sat in a still, symmetrical position, constantly watching the board. Niemann, by contrast, was extremely restless – repeatedly crossing his legs, running his hands through his hair, stretching, covering his eyes with his hands, looking at his opponent, occasionally glancing around the room. Some may find him annoying, but I don't think Vitchugov minded. In general, Niemann had the advantage on the clock, and Vitchugov lost the first game when time expired.”
Niemann rose to fame when he beat then-world champion Magnus Carlsen at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, sparking cheating allegations, a $100 million lawsuit and years of animosity between the two that remains unresolved. It's now generally accepted that there was no cheating and that anal beads were never involved.
Niemann, who was ranked outside the top 40 about a year ago, is now ranked 21st in the world and is focused on qualifying for major invitational tournaments that have been largely denied him due to his relatively low ranking, his difficult personality and a highly publicized hotel room vandalism incident.
Earlier this month, Niemann defeated Anish Giri, ranked No. 1 in the Netherlands and one of the top players in Western Europe, in a $50,000 series in Utrecht. Niemann's victory was 24-18 in a mixed series with three points in classic games, two in rapid and one in blitz. Niemann won the classic and blitz games and drew the rapid game. After his match against Vitiugov, Niemann will face France's No. 3, Etienne Baclof, in Paris for a $30,000 series. With another strong performance, he could move into the top 15 in the world.
Niemann's concept of playing individual matches to make up for a lack of invitations to top-level tournaments had precedent more than a century ago, when Jose Raul Capablanca toured multiple cities, including London and Paris, and recorded a score of +19=5-2 in master play.
Capablanca's tour was a huge success, rivalling the legendary Paul Morphy's European tour of 1858. It established the Cuban as the preeminent challenger to the then world champion, Emanuel Lasker.
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Realistically, Niemann should have more modest ambitions: a ranking of 15-20 in the world by the end of the tour and then unseating Carlsen as the No. 1 Blitz ranking would be the maximum he can achieve.
The Carlsen-Niemann rematch will take place on September 6 in Paris, during the live semi-finals and final of the chess.com Speed Championship. To reach the semi-finals, Niemann defeated Maxime Bachier-Lagrave and Wesley So, while Carlsen knocked out world number four Arjun Erigaishi. In an interview after his match against So, Niemann slammed “the chess establishment for trying to ruin my career”.
The rematch will have an unusual format: previous rounds of the Speed Championship have been played exclusively online, but Paris will be a hybrid event, with opponents sitting across from each other but playing on different computers. There will be 90 minutes of 5+1 blitz, 60 minutes of 3+1 blitz and 30 minutes of 1+1 bullet. Carlsen said he would prefer to face different opponents, but “if I'm in good form I won't have too many problems winning.” The other semi-final will be between Hikaru Nakamura and Alireza Firouzja.
The Carlsen-Niemann furore began at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup. The 2024 Sinquefield Cup, the climax of the St. Louis-based Grand Chess Tour, begins Monday. Attention will be on the match between Ding Lieren and Gukesh Domaraj, participants in the 14-game, $2.5 million world title match scheduled to begin in Singapore on Nov. 23. Ding will be hoping to continue his recent good form.
The full list for Sinquefield 2024 is: Fabiano Caruana and So (USA), Firouzja and Vachier-Lagrave (France), Pragnanander Rameshbabu and Gukesh (India), Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia/Fide), Nodirbek Abdusatlov (Uzbekistan) and Ding (China). The match kicks off at 7.30pm BST on Monday 19 August and will be streamed live on grandchesstour.org.
3933 1….Kf2+! 2 Qxb3 Ng5+! 3 hxg5 Qh8 checkmate.
