Mainz Randomness 07

Hot and sick and tired these days, but don't let me get you down. The Yankees are winning, Rove is leaving, and there are still a few bridges in this country standing. And Garry is back in New In Chess next month. Many here will appreciate his big hat tip to our man Chucky.

There are also a few chess events going on, by the way. The Mainz Classic series is underway, although the big rapid open doesn't start until the 18th. Right now it's mostly shuffle chess, or Fischerandom or Chess960 or whatever you want to call it this year. Instead of matches the top Chess960 "world championship" event this year is a four-player tournament with Aronian, Bacrot, Kasimjanov, and Anand. On Friday the 17th the same four players begin the "rapid world championship" with the same format of preliminary all-play-all leading to matches between players 1-2 and 3-4. On the 16th the FiNet Chess960 Open begins. The Chess960 events are also rapid chess, plus the time you spend in the first few minutes trying to scratch out your own eyeballs when you see the initial position. On the 18th the massive Ordix Open starts and that, blessedly, will find all the pieces safely back on the squares god intended.

There is always a morass of pages at the official site and often separate live pages as well. This page usually serves as an index to all the live pages, although sometimes links pop up elsewhere and results can be hard to find. Right now this main live link leads to the two games of today's first round of the Chess960 event with Anand. It should be starting at 1830 local time according to this handy PDF schedule. That means NOW.

Outspoken organizer Hans-Walter Schmitt has an interview at ChessBase. Pre-event interview with Anand with video on Chessdom ht marca. Dirt recap of last year's event or click the "Mainz" tag below for that and more.