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Chess.com teams up with Susquehanna International Group, LLP (SIG) to present the 2021 Bullet Chess Championship. The event's qualifiers will happen on March 31 and April 1, while the main event will run from April 5-April 7. The All-Star event will be held on April 8. During the championship, top players will face each other in 1|0 matches to compete for their piece of a $32,000 total prize fund.

This year, reigning champion GM Hikaru Nakamura will fight to defend his title against elite players.

Chess.com will broadcast the event and provide live expert commentary on Chess.com/TV and Twitch.tv/Chess.

Defending champion, Nakamura, gets the highest seed. Seedings for the remaining players will be determined by their ratings after the qualifier stage.

Below is the schedule for the 2021 Bullet Chess Championship presented by SIG:

Qualifiers:

Main Event:

All-Star:

The championship has a total prize fund of $32,000 which will be divided as described below:

Main event: total prize fund of $25,000

All-star event: total prize fund of $7,000

Qualifiers:

Main event:

All-star event:

Main event players:

All-Star players:

The rest is here:
2021 Bullet Chess Championship Presented By SIG: All The Information - Chess.com

An otherwise meaningless game during Mondays preliminary stage of the $200,000 Magnus Carlsen Invitational left a pair of grandmasters in stitches while thrusting one of chesss most bizarre and least effective openings into the mainstream.

Norways Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States had already qualified for the knockout stage of the competition with one game left to play between them. Carlsen, the worlds top-ranked player and reigning world champion, started the dead rubber typically enough by moving his kings pawn with the common 1 e4. Nakamura, the five-time US champion and current world No 18, mirrored it with 1 e5. And then all hell broke loose.

Carlsen inched his king one space forward to the rank where his pawn had started. The self-destructive opening (2 Ke2) is known as the bongcloud for a simple reason: youd have to be stoned to the gills to think it was a good idea.

The wink-wink move immediately sent Nakamura, whos been a visible champion of the bongcloud in recent years, into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Naturally, the American played along with 2 Ke7, which marked the first double bongcloud ever played in a major tournament and its official entry to chess theory (namely, the Bongcloud Counter-Gambit: Hotbox Variation).

Dont do this! cried the Hungarian grandmaster Peter Leko from the commentary booth, looking on in disbelief as the friendly rivals quickly settled for a draw by repetition after six moves. Is this, uh, called bongcloud? Yeah? It was something like of a bongcloud business. This Ke2-Ke7 stuff. Please definitely dont try it at home. Guys, just forget about it.

Why is the bongcloud so bad? For one, it manages to break practically all of the principles youre taught about chess openings from day one: it doesnt fight for the center, it leaves the king exposed and it wastes time, all while eliminating the possibility of castling and managing to impede the development of the bishop and queen. Even the worst openings tend to have some redeeming quality. The bongcloud, not so much.

What makes it funny (well, not to everyone) is the idea that two of the best players on the planet would use an opening so pure in its defiance of conventional wisdom.

This bongcloud has been a cult favorite in chess circles since the dawn of the internet, a popularity only fueled by Bobby Fischers rumored deployment of the opening in his alleged series of games with Nigel Short on the Internet Chess Club back in 2000. But its origins as a meme can be traced to Andrew Fabbros underground book Winning with the Bongcloud, a pitch-perfect parody of chess opening manuals and the purple, ponderous language that fills their pages.

Thats not to say, like, say, Michael Changs underhand serve against Ivan Lendl in the 1989 French Open, theres no place for it at the elite level. Carlsen used it last October in the first game of a speed chess final win over the American grandmaster Wesley So, who confessed to its psychological effects in the aftermath: Its hard to forget the game when someone plays f3 and Kf2 and just crushes you. Thats so humiliating.

Then later: If you lose a game against 1 f3 and 2 Kf2 its just very psychologically draining.

Of course its Nakamura who has become the player most associated with the bongcloud. The 33-year-old most recently won a rapid game using it against the American grandmaster Jeffery Xiong last year during the $250,000 St Louis 27-round Rapid and Blitz. Hes even streamed a speedrun series where he attempted to reach a 3000 rating with a new account using only the bongcloud.

The combined visibility, culminating with Mondays viral moment, have lifted an obscure meme opening out of the shadows. As of Wednesday, its been added to the opening databases at lichess and chess.com. Of course, not everyone will be a fan: no less than Short himself appeared to describe the bongcloud as an insult to chess this week.

Chess will return to Serious Business once again in the next few months. The eight-man candidates tournament to determine Carlsens challenger in this years world chess championship will resume in April in Yekaterinburg following last years abrupt suspension. Then in November, Carlsen will embark on the fourth defense of the title hes held since 2013. The stratospheric stakes of those events all but preclude scenes like Mondays, which as commentator Tania Sachdev put it amid the delirium, is too bad. After all, its only a game.

Its kind of nice, Sachdev said, to see these two players having a laugh like this.

See original here:
Double bongcloud: why grandmasters are playing the worst move in chess - The Guardian

Photo:Parker Waters/Eclipse Sportswire

Chess Chief rallied from last in the field of eight to nail .90-1 favorite Owendaleon the wire in a thrilling 96th rendition of the Grade 2, $400,000 New Orleans Classicat Fair Grounds. Trained by Dallas Stewart and ridden by Luis Saez, Chess Chief completed the 1 1/8 miles in 1:49.24.

In the early stages of the race, Roadster, with jockey John Velazquez in the saddle, led into the first turn through a moderate 24.11 quarter-mile fraction while Owendale and Florent Geroux tracked his every move to his outside hip. Chess Chief was nearly 5 lengths off the early pace-setting duo, while they completed a half-mile in 48.30. At the half-mile pole, Saez began asking Chess Chief to start closing ground on the leaders. At the top of the long Fair Grounds stretch, Roadster and Owendale continued to duel on the front end. Owendale took a clear advantage at the 3/16ths pole as Chess Chief continued to close ground down the center of the racecourse. Chess Chief surged late to win the narrowest of decisions.

He finally gave me that last shot close to the wire to let us get by, Saez said. Everyone made a pretty early move. We tried to save ground at the rail. When we finally got the clear a lot of horses in front of us were backing up.

Chess Chief, owned by the estate of James Coleman, rewarded his backers at 5-1. Owendale was a half-length in front of the hard-charging Enforceable, who finished third with Adam Beschizza.

Hes by Into Mischief so we know hes a quality horse, Stewart said. We are so grateful to train for Coleman family.

Owendale trainer Brad Cox said: "It was an unfortunate photo on our end. No excuses. We had a good trip, just second best today. Going a mile-and-an-eighth it didnt work out. We will take a look at the Alysheba (at Churchill Downs) next probably."

Disqualified and placed sixth after crossing the line third in last years New Orleans Classic, Chess Chief most recently earned the show dough behind Maxfield in the locally run Mineshaft (G3). In winning his first career graded stakes, Chess Chief improved his record to 23: 4-4-3 with $632,048 in earnings.

The rest is here:
Chess Chief catches Owendale to win New Orleans Classic - Horse Racing Nation

While Chubbs $23.2 billion opening bid for The Hartford appears to be mostly a commercial lines play to many observers, one experienced industry observer has a different take on it.

Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg would certainly welcome what The Hartford has to offer in commercial lines, especially its $2.2 billion in small commercial lines; however, insurance industry economist Dr. Robert Hartwig thinks Greenberg has his sights set on The Hartfords personal lines business and on challenging the current personal lines market leaders.

The Hartford, which has confirmed receiving the unsolicited, non-binding proposal from Chubb, writes abut $3 billion in personal lines: about $2 billion in auto and more than $900 million in homeowners. Much of its personal lines business comes from an exclusive licensing agreement with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), which has been extended through 2032. It also sells group benefits and other products.

Just as the Chubb merger with Ace a few years ago has had a material effect on commercial lines markets, so too would this deal impact personal lines, in the view of the University of South Carolina professor. Hartwig thinks the proposed deal could trigger other mergers in the personal lines market.

Hartwig, an economist, headed the industrys Insurance Information Institute for 18 years until 2016, when he joined the South Carolina faculty as clinical associate professor of Risk Management, Insurance and Finance in the Darla Moore School of Business and director of the schools Center for Risk and Uncertainty Management.

The professor understands that many people may not see it the way he does because Chubb is predominantly a commercial lines carrier. He agrees there would be material effects on the commercial lines side, with Chubb being able to expand into the small and middle market commercial space, and that is important and notable. There would also be synergies and savings to be had there.

Hartwig contends that while the lure of the personal lines business may be less obvious and understated, it is more important and compelling in both the immediate and longer term.

There are going to be sleepless nights in the C-suites of many personal lines carriers.

He described the Chubb proposal as a chess game by CEO Greenberg, with the commercial lines business being the initial move of the pawn in a strategy that anticipates capturing the personal lines business a couple of moves down the chess board.

If the acquisition comes to be, it is going to set in motion reverberations that could shake up the personal lines space, according to Hartwig.

Here is why Hartwig thinks the personal lines business is key.

Personal Lines Move

From an exposure side, the deal makes sense for Chubb as a balancing act by a largely commercial lines company. Chubb is a leader in the high net worth personal lines market, but not in the personal lines middle markets that The Hartford and the large personal lines carriers have.

With the acquisition, Chubb would be entering personal lines markets where it does not have a very significant presence today and be placing itself in direct competition with the likes of Allstate, State Farm, Progressive, Geico and others.

Even before the Chubb announcement, Hartwig predicted there would be consolidation in the personal lines business. He believes the Chubb move is going to act as a catalyst for further consolidation and cause a great deal of reshuffling.

He suggested that the large personal lines writers will take note of Chubbs move because until now they have only competed with Chubb and with AIG in the high net worth market, a somewhat limited market. Now this would literally put them head-to-head with one another, he said.

There are going to be sleepless nights in the C-suites of many personal lines carriers, he said.

As for the timing, Hartwig noted that M&A activity in general is soaring. This is probably a propitious moment for such a deal given the expected rebound in the economy and the continuing expansion of middle-class wealth tied up in residential real estate. There is a robust market for home sales and new construction, as far as the eye can see.

The deal would place Chubb in a position to take advantage of whats likely to be quite robust and quite stable growth in the personal lines side, almost coast to coast.

Hartwig said it is possible that The Hartford could receive competing bids. Among the insurers he sees with the resources to take a shot at The Hartford are Berkshire Hathaway, Travelers, Liberty Mutual, Zurich, as well as AIG and Allstate although he questions if the last two would have interest.

Even in this time of heightened scrutiny, whatever antitrust concerns might arise with this deal are probably manageable, although the business will have to be looked at line by line, state by state, he said.

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More here:
Why Its Bid for The Hartford Is a Personal Lines Chess Move by Chubb - Insurance Journal

If youre working on your chess game, you would likely love to be trained by a professional. You could learn all the smartest strategies straight from the source, discovering the ways to stay one step ahead of your opponent game after game. The only problem is, lessons can be pretty expensive. Now, you can get access to those pros without spending a ton of money (nor having to go to class every week).

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The three multifaceted courses in this bundle really run the gamut. Case in point: one of the 44-hour courses includes 14 lessons, covering intel from chess masters including Damian Lemos, Alisa Melekhina. and Anna Rudolf. Learn key insights, from mastering the opening and playing the middlegame like a grandmaster to fighting in the endgame. Youll also learn all the ins and outs of the London System.

Another course load focuses on lessons for intermediate players, with 49 hours of training from notable names like Simon Williams, Lawrence Trent and Marian Petrov. Instead of spending hours and hours playing to figure out certain strategies, youll learn important skills like how and when to launch an attack, as well as the secrets of positional chess.

Once youve got all that down, youll move on to advanced chess strategy sessions, helping you hone your skills and tweak your thought processes as well as forcing moves to prophylaxis, pattern recognition and openings. Complete with comprehensive examples, this class pack will get you ready to thrive at your next match.

If youre ready to rise up in the ranks, this is the perfect place to start. Right now, you can get The Ultimate Beginner to Grandmaster Chess Course Bundle for $89.99, down 87% from the original MSRP.

Prices subject to change.

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Become A Grandmaster With These Chess Training Courses - IFLScience