Bengaluru: The world No 1 and world No 2 on the same side, a 56-year-old five-time world champion and a 12-year-old Argentinian prodigy sharing a team and an all-Chinese outfit, led by Ding Liren, named ‘Dragon Chilling’ – a nod to the viral ‘Ding Chilling’ meme, that takes the prize for the wackiest team name at the World Team Rapid and Blitz Championship.
The name was inspired by the 2024 World Championship match meme, where camera feeds from the players’ lounge frequently showed former world champion Ding Liren sitting motionless on a chair with his hands tucked by his sides.
‘Dragon Chilling’ team member Lei Tingjie spoke about them finding the ‘Ding Chilling’ episode funny and the name being picked by team captain Ni Hua, who was also Ding’s second during the match. It was then combined with the Chinese cultural symbol, dragon, to form the team name.
Barring world champion Gukesh, most top chess players are in Hong Kong for the June 17-21 tournament which is in its fourth edition this year and has amateur players competing alongside elite professionals.
On Day 1, ‘Dragon Chilling’ got off to a perfect 8/8 start despite Ding losing on the top board. Team KazChess, which features Ding’s World Championship second Richard Rapport, too finished with 8/8 after the opening day with the Hungarian GM defeating World Championship challenger Javokhir Sindarov of team Uzbekistan.
American GM Hans Niemann was perhaps the most impressive player of the day with four wins in as many rounds. Magnus Carlsen – who is representing WR Chess along with world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana – drew against Indian GM Raunak Sadhwani and defeated grizzled veteran, 57-year-old Vasyl Ivanchuk.
The Ukrainian is one year older than five-time world champion and FIDE deputy president Viswanathan Anand, who is part of the Chess United side alongside the second-youngest GM Faustino Oro and Koneru Humpy.
“I was happy to get a team here and was looking forward to playing some chess again otherwise it would have been quite a few months since my last tournament,” Anand, told HT. “This is nice…it gives me a chance to play a few games.”
A week after his stunning late charge to win the Norway Chess title in a field that included both Carlsen and Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa is back in competition again. He along with his sister and women’s World Championship challenger Vaishali, is part of team Chess Gurukul, named after the academy they belong to, run by mentor RB Ramesh. Praggnanandhaa defeated Iranian-French GM Alireza Firouzja while defending champions MGD1 powered by Indian stars – Arjun Erigaisi, Nihal Sarin, Pranav V, Leon Mendonca and Harika Dronavalli, are tied at four points with 16 other teams.
The Rapid tournament runs from June 17 to June 19, featuring four rounds per day. It will be followed by the World Team Blitz Championship on June 20 and June 21, with the pool stage on June 20 and the knockout stage on June 21.
At the opening press conference, Carlsen was asked about his current relationship with Fide, and choosing to play a Fide-run event: “I personally feel that I’m in a stage in my career where the politics doesn’t really interest me…that’s not what I’m involved with…I’m not attending Fide events because I’m a Fide fan and I’m like ‘Go Fide’…I’m attending based on whether it is interesting for me from the sporting perspective. I’ve been part of the WR Chess team and I’m very happy with that…But I’m not involved in any other battles currently.”
Carlsen’s relationship with the world chess body, Fide was never exactly rosy. They had a public falling out two years ago surrounding the controversy over Carlsen flouting tournament dress code and arriving in jeans to one of the rounds of the year-end world rapid and blitz tournament in 2024. There has also been friction over the Freestyle tournament of which Carlsen has been a promoter, being granted World Championship status.
On Wednesday, June 17, it was Russian GM and Praggnanandhaa’s former second, Peter Svidler’s 50th birthday. He scored 2.5/3 for Kazakhstan’s second team and remarked in his typical self-effacing style that he accepted the invitation as long as there’s “no expectation that I remember how the pieces move.”
