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{City of Coral Springs}

By Sharon Aron Baron

The City of Coral Springs Parks and Recreation Department hosts the 2nd Annual King of Coral Springs Chess tournament on Saturday, May 21, at 9 a.m.

In partnership with the National Scholastic Chess Foundation, the event will be held at the Coral Springs Charter School and is open to elementary school: ages 5-11 and middle and high school: Ages 12-18.

The King of Chess tournament is free, but all participants and spectators must pre-register at the King of Coral Springs Chess Tournament.

Lunch will be provided for students playing chess. Check-in time will begin at 8 a.m. with chess matches beginning promptly at 9 a.m.

Sartory Hall is located at 10150 NW 29th Street.

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2nd Annual King of Coral Springs Chess Tournament Held May 21 Coral Springs Talk - Coral Springs Talk

The Chess.com Legends Arena is a monthly event for players who have advanced all the way to the Legend League, the most elite League on Chess.com. Players will compete in 3+0 blitz Arenas in three different rating categories for their piece of the $1,050 monthly prize fund. Events run on the last Friday of every month, with the first Legends Arena starting on May 27 at 9 a.m. PT/18:00 CET.

Every player in the Legend League can participate in the Chess.com Legends Arena. To learn more about Leagues and how you can become a legendary player, go to our Players League page.

There are three prize categories based on players' Chess.com blitz rating at the end of each Arena. The categories and prizes are described below:

Open Prizes

U1800

U1200

Chess.com Legends Arena is a monthly event that happens every last Friday of the month, starting at 9 a.m. PT/18:00 CET. Each Arena lasts for 90 minutes.

If you are in the Legend League, you automatically become a member of the official Chess.com Legends Club. Once you're in the club, you'll see the Chess.com Legends Arena tournaments on our Tournaments page. Make sure you join the Arena within one hour before the event starts to play.

Link:
Chess.com Legends Arena: All The Information - Chess.com

GM Ding Liren is officially among the participants of the FIDE Candidates Tournament. The field of eight players was announced today by the International Chess Federation. Ding replaces GM Sergey Karjakin, who was banned for six months due to expressing his strong support for Russia's warfare in Ukraine on social media.

Ding's participation, which is now official, was already pretty certain when Karjakin's appeal against his ban was dismissed. Here's FIDE's announcement of the participants, a month before the start of the event, on Twitter:

Ding failed to qualify directly for the Candidates, but because of Karjakin's ban, he can now play as a substitute because he is the highest-rated player who wasn't in the field yet. The regulations (here in PDF) state:

2.3 If any replacement is needed, the highest-rated player in the FIDE May 2022 standard rating list shall be invited, provided he/she has at least 30 standard games rated in the FIDE rating lists from June 2021 to May 2022.

When Karjakin received his ban on March 21, Ding had only played four standard games after June last year, but in March-April he played a further 28 games in China to become eligible. As the only participant with a rating over 2800, he will be the top seed in the field:

The FIDE Candidates Tournament takes place June 16-July 7, 2022 in Madrid, Spain. In this guide you will find all the information available, including all details about Chess.com's official and Twitch-exclusive coverage from the playing hall. Also, don't miss our SmarterChess predictions and our Meet the Candidates article where we present you all eight players extensively.

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Ding Liren Officially In the Candidates As FIDE Announces Participants - Chess.com

The 2022 FIDE Candidates tournament will occur in Madrid, Spain, from June 16-July 5, 2022. The tournament will consist of eight qualified players, and the winner earns the right to challenge GM Magnus Carlsen for the World Champion title. This article will use SmarterChess predictions, brought to you by ChessGoals.com,to calculate each player's odds of winning the event. We'll first cover the statistical models and then dive into the breakdowns for each player.

I looked at all Candidate Tournaments since 2013, when Carlsen qualified for the championship, to build the statistical models. Previous events had 14 rounds and an average rating of 2770-2787. I logged birth year, peak rating, the peak year, points off of peak, and years off of peak. For peak ratings, I only looked before that event date. All of these factors were in consideration for a statistical model to predict performance rating. The most important predictors were:

Factors 3 and 4 were not statistically significant and only affected projected performance ratings by about one Elo point. Both current and peak ratings had a positive association with predicted performance ratings.

I calculated the implied win-loss-draw odds for each game and applied random numbers to determine the result. After summarizing all 56 games for a tournament simulation, I checked if there was a clear winner or a tie for first place. I simulated 1000 tournaments (56,000 games) to determine the final odds and results. The draw rate for the simulations was 69.2% of the matches.

The most common winning score in the Classical segment was 8.5 points, which is a +3 score over 14 games. The average winning classical score was 8.7 points, which highlights that a player has to have the ability to play at a very high level to win this prestigious event.

We will start with the lowest projected finishers in the simulations and work our way up to the top finishers. I'm using April 2022 FIDE ratings for the numbers listed below and live ratings for the models.

Duda is only 23 years old and has the lowest rating (2750) in the event. His peak rating is 2760, so he hasn't shown that he can consistently perform at the 2810+ level required to win the candidates. He's projected to win 29 events in the classical and 9 of 23 tie-for-first scenarios, totaling 38 wins in 1000 simulations (4% chance to win). His most likely score is 6 points, with an average score of 6.2 in the simulations. Duda qualified by winning the Chess World Cup 2021, so we cannot count out the youngster!

Rapport has a similar profile to Duda in that he's one of the youngest players in the field and hasn't had as high of a peak rating as the other players in the event. It's unlikely that a player can come into a Candidates Tournament at their peak rating and win if the peak rating isn't over 2800. Rapport wins 37 events solo in simulations and 12 in the tiebreaks, totaling 49 events out of 1000. However, rapport's strong performances in Berlin and Belgrade earned him second place in the FIDE Grand Prix event. It's exciting that the two lowest odds are both young players that could surprise the cold-hearted statistical models.

Radjabov has an exciting profile. He was the youngest grandmaster in history in 2001 when he earned the title at age 14. He had a peak rating of 2793 in 2012 and has shown flashes of brilliance in his chess career. The high peak performance rating bumps him up a bit in the odds over Duda and Rapport, but he still hasn't reached the 2800+ mark. He won 76 of the 1000 simulated events and had an average of 6.8 points.

Nepomniachtchi has recently come off a world championship match against Carlsen in 2021, where he started out playing extremely high-quality chess for the first five games. After that, Magnus won four of the next six games to secure the match 7.5-3.5.Nepomniachtchi is below the next group of players in the simulations due to his <2800 current and peak ratings. He averaged 6.8 points and won 78 of the simulated events. I gave him a slight bump up in the tiebreak odds and had him winning 21/44 tiebreak scenarios. His strong 2821 rapid rating could come into play if he can get his way back up to 8+ points in the event.

The youngest player in the field is only 18 years old and recently skyrocketed to his 2804 FIDE rating. I know I will get some heat for this prediction, so please send your complaints to IM Danny Rensch, CCO of Chess.com. He's the man who hires me to write these articles. Hear me out on this one. Alireza has a current rating of 2804 with a peak rating of 2804. Even though this is very strong, we have three other players that have a history of being rated 2816 or higher! Historically, players have also been at the top longer than Firouzja before winning a candidate's event. His most common score in the simulations was 50%, with an average of 7.3 points. He won 114 simulations outright plus an additional 36/90 in the tiebreakers, notching him 150 victories out of 1000 events.

Nakamura is in a virtual tie with Firouzja regarding the odds. He wins 144 events out of 1000 but scores more tournament victories in the tiebreakers due to his 2837 rapid rating. His average score is 7.2/14, with a most common score of 7.5 points. That's a higher mode but lower average score and odds than Firouzja. I believe Naka is the dark horse of the event and could surprise everyone if he comes in with a 2800+ performance. Nakamura was number two in the world at age 27 with a 2816 FIDE rating. The average age of the last five winners was 30, so this 34-year-old may need to strike now before the odds are against him.

He is the last qualifier for this event, with the second-highest FIDE rating in the field after his recent flurry of tournaments to make sure he qualifies. Ding has been so consistent at the top that he's probably the gambling favorite once the websites account for his qualification. The other player that has been at the top for this long of a recent stretch is GM Fabiano Caruana, but currently, Fabiano has been in a bit of a slump. In 1000 simulations, Ding won 157 in the classical and 49 in the tiebreaker, totaling 206 victories! His average score and most likely score both fell squarely at 7.5 points.

The models say that Caruana is the most likely challenger to face Magnus Carlsen in the next FIDE World Championship! Caruana scored an impressive 7.7 average with a most common score of 8 points out of 14. He won 197 events in the classical and another 62 in the tiebreaker totaling 259 tournament victories. Caruana's peak rating of 2844 back in 2014, combined with his solid current rating, makes him the favorite to win it all.

The data-building for this article was a fun exercise trying to figure out what predicts a player's performance in past candidate events and applying it to the 2022 tournament. Here's an exciting look at the full table of scores in the simulations. Caruana and Ding both had some 11/14 winning scores!

If you're interested in improving your chess with data-driven articles like this one, please check out my website ChessGoals.com for more content. I might bump up Firouzja to the 20% range if I were to break away from the data, but it's also hard to say if he should be above Nakamura.

Check out NM Matt Jensen going through this article in this video:

Let us know what you think about the predictions in the comment section below!

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Who Will Win The 2022 Candidates? - Chess.com

Chess.com's latest Coach of the Month is FM Alessandro Santagati! A skilled coach with more than 10 years of teaching experience, Santagati prides himself on giving each student exactly what they need to succeed. Read on to learn more about this enthusiastic Italian FM.

Readers seeking private instruction can contact Alessandro Santagati via his Chess.com profile and can find other skilled coaches at Chess.com/coaches.

At what age were you introduced to chess, and who introduced you?

I started my chess journey at the age of 11 when I played in a tournament at my school. It was a tournament for players under the age of 16; I won three games in a row, all using scholar's mate! I then lost all the other games, finishing with three points out of seven games.

What is your first vivid memory from chess?

In the beginning, chess looked pretty complex. I remember not wanting to give up because it was an exciting challenge for me. When I was 13, I lost a lot of games in the tournaments I played. At age 14, I played a tournament for players rated under 2000. Despite the fact that my rating was 1452 at the time, I got very close to winning and ended up finishing third. This was something that definitely motivated me a lot.

Which coaches were helpful to you in your chess career, and what was the most useful knowledge they imparted to you?

I think I learned a lot from different people. When I was a child, local coaches helped me appreciate the study of the classics like Jose Raul Capablanca. As an adult, I had some private sessions with two really good grandmasters, Jan Werle and Andrey Sumets. They helped me to improve my positional understanding, as well as my opening knowledge.

Which game do you consider your "Magnus Opus?"

GM Jan Werle is probably the best player I beat in my chess career. I like this game because my approach was very cautious. At the same time, I was trying to create some counterplay at the right moment. It worked.

How would you describe your approach to chess coaching?

My approach as a coach is to really listen to my students. I work mainly with one-on-one lessons, and it's essential to understand the person's individual skills and goals. I take a look at their games to explore their weaknesses, and I prepare customized material to solve their main problems.

What do you consider your responsibility as a coach and which responsibilities fall on your student?

My responsibility is to create a tailored plan for each student, and to give them all the tools available to help them understand some key concepts to improve their chess games. After that, it is up to the student to stay motivated and follow the program.

What is a piece of advice that you give your students that you think more chess players could benefit from?

Playing chess, especially if you play good chess, can help you tremendously in developing a good thinking process that is going to be helpful in every aspect of your daily life.

What is your favorite teaching game that users might not have seen?

I really like this game, as it clearly shows the basic principles behind a good attack. To create a good attack, it's necessary to have certain conditions, especially when we are talking about attacking the king.

It's very important to have good control with the pawns and enough pieces to support the pressure because, very often, it's necessary to sacrifice. The other two important elements are open lines that can help the pieces to attack better, and the weaknesses of the enemy squares or pawns.

A good attack is a step-by-step process: you make a threat, and your opponent could stop itbut it might cause a weakness. Eventually, they have too many weaknesses, and you can break the enemy's position.

What is the puzzle you give students that tells you the most about how they think?

A common problem for beginners and intermediate chess players is that they play with no strategy. Very often, I'll show this position to them and ask them a couple of questions. What is their plan in this position? Which elements of the position do they consider when coming up with their plan?

Do you prefer to teach online or offline? What do you think is different about teaching online?

I prefer to teach onlineit's my main job. I think online one-on-one lessons are the best choice. It's faster to set the chessboard, easier to load the material I prepared, and you can record the lesson.

What do you consider the most valuable training tool that the internet provides?

I really like Chess.com's analysis board and Puzzles. I've found classical puzzles to be very useful for myself; I think it's very important to work on difficult positions slowly without rushing.

Which under-appreciated chess book should every chess player read?

Interesting question. I'm not sure if it's under-appreciated, but I'd say Emanuel Lasker's Manual of Chess. Lasker is one of the stronger and longer-lasting chess players in the history of the game, and this book covers all of the most important key elements of chess strategy.

Are you a chess coach who's looking to find new students, build your brand, and get paid more for the work that you're already doing? Check out Chess.com's Coach Affiliate Program.

Previous Coaches of the Month:

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Coach Of The Month: FM Alessandro Santagati - Chess.com