Nigel Short, the 1993 world title challenger, will head to the Antarctic for his next tournament as the 61-year-old, formerly of Bolton but resident for many decades in Greece, attempts to become the first chess player to win tournaments on seven continents.
There is history for the very strongest grandmasters successfully defying the ravages of time: Emanuel Lasker in his mid-60s at Moscow 1935 and 1936, Viktor Korchnoi in his seventies, and, most impressive of all, Vasily Smyslov reaching the 1984 Candidates final against Garry Kasparov at 63.
Short is now Fide’s director for chess development. His opponents will represent all the other five inhabited continents, including three women and several Fide officials. Detractors of the event, who criticise its carbon footprint, suggest that it is too easy for him and that he could perform equally well with a simultaneous display.
However, the associated physical requirements will be challenging. The participants will have to fly from Cape Town, South Africa directly into Antarctica’s interior, a journey of more than 2,500 miles across the Southern Ocean. They will then continue to the south pole in a small aircraft designed for remote polar operations, a further seven hour journey. The event is financed by private anonymous sponsors with an interest in promoting the game.
Short was a candidate for the England team at the current Samarkand Olympiad despite still ranking No 6, because the No 2 David Howell, who won individual gold at Chennai 2022, is now prioritising his successful career as a media commentator.
Short lost around 100 points in 2020, but in the six years since then his rating has remained stable at close to 2600 despite his diminished activity. On the current September Fide list he is at 2594, just four points behind Michael Adams and Luke McShane and 52 ahead of Daniel Fernandez, 30 years Short’s junior, who was preferred for the Olympiad team. Fernandez has been significantly more active than his older rival, and won a strong international tournament in the Netherlands which coincided with the British Championships at Coventry.
Short’s results include the World over-50 team championship in 2022, when he and Adams, England’s all-time best players, both won individual and gold medals, but he has not been chosen for any England team since then.
Meanwhile, both top board Nikita Vitiugov and Fernandez escaped from bad positions as England eased to a 4-0 win against the minnows from Monaco in round one of the Samarkand Olympiad, which opened on Wednesday. Hans Niemann, making his Olympiad debut for the US, won in a crushing 23 moves, while 12-year-old Faustino Oro, top board for Argentina, scored in 22.
It was an action-packed game, in which Oro used the rare 5 Qh5 in the Caro-Kann Advance Variation, got an advantage, then blundered it away at move 19, before his Kenyan opponent collapsed a move later.
For England women, 11-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan played incisively on top board, refuting her Barbados opponent’s 15 e4? with 15…c5! It was a welcome contrast to the hesitant girl who made her Olympiad debut in Budapest 2024 at the age of nine, and it set the tone for a 4-0 English victory, recovering from a couple of dubious positions.
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Thursday’s round-two pairings also went well for England, whose open team were paired with Tajikistan while England Women met Nigeria. In the play, Sivanandan scored another convincing victory against weak opposition as she doubled her winning total from Budapest, while her teammates also used their superior experience for a 3.5-0.5 margin, with Jovanka Houska drawing.
England Women are now on 7.5-0.5. Friday’s third round can be viewed live online, beginning at 11.15am BST. England won 3-1, Vitiugov and Gawain Maroroa Jones winning with White while Adams and Fernandez drew with Black.
In round three of the Open Olympiad England play Lithuania, and in round three of the Women’s Olympiad they meet Brazil.
4042 1 Nb7! and Black resigned. If 1…Bxb7 2 Qxe7 wins the bishop, as does 1…Rxd6 2 Qxe7 h6 3 Qe8+. But the real hidden idea – congratulations if you found it – is the queen sacrifice 1…Nxd5 2 Nxd8! Nxb4 3 Re8 mate.
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