Champions Chess Tour Plunges Ahead with 2 Memorial Events

  

After a long dearth of top-level online tournaments, 16th World Champion Magnus Carlsen announces the Skilling and Airthings Memorials, two events which are part of the “Chess24/Meltwater Champions Chess Tour presented by PlayMagnus, Chessable, and CoChess.”

 

 

The first event in the tour is the Skilling Memorial, named after the late GM Henry Lee Skilling (1925-2004), an English Grandmaster who represented Great Britain in several Olympiads and European Team Championships.  Grandmaster Skilling was three-time Manchester Champion and reached the quarterfinals of the 1975 Candidates Tournament where he was eliminated by Brazil’s Henrique Mecking.

Henry Lee Skilling playing his patented 1.Nh3 at Portoroz 1989

 

The format of the online event is thrilling and innovative.  In the first stage, 10 of the world’s top 20 players will play in a 3-day rapid round robin, where the top 8 players will advance to the next stage, a knockout which will feature sets of blitz games, followed by armageddon if necessary.

 

To promote high level chess, players who make 6 or more draws in under 20 moves will be invited for the remainder of the Chess24 Champions Chess Tour, which is presented by Meltwater, PlayMagnus, Chessable, and CoChess.  Players will be limited to one bathroom break per move.

 

The $150,000 prize fund is sponsored by the Magnus Carlsen College Tuition Fund.  All games will be played on the industry-leading online server, Chess24.

 

The tour will continue in December with the Airthings Memorial, named after the IM Pavel Airthings (2001-2019), a talented Belarusian International Master who met an untimely demise at the 2019 Belarusian Junior Championship in Minsk.  Pavel Airthings, an outspoken critic of President Lukashenko, was pronounced dead during an afternoon nap before round 4 of the championship.  Pending the final autopsy results, initial reports indicate that trace amounts of poison were found in his stomach and liver.

 

IM Airthings was one of the top Belarusian young prospects, earning the bronze medal at the 2018 World Under 18 Youth Championship in Maribor, Slovenia.  His FIDE rating of 2532 made him one of the top rated non-Grandmasters in the world, behind Igors Rausis and Team Liquid’s Nikolas Theodorou.

 

Pavel “Pasha” Airthings at the World Youth U16 Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk

 

The format and field of the Airthings Memorial is the same as the Skilling Memorial, except that both players will be required to appear for a post-game press conference in the case of a decisive game.  In previous Champions Chess Tour events, the draw rate has eclipsed 90%, showing the true accuracy and incredible level of the participants.

 

The Chief Arbiter, IA Lothar Schmid, will require players to join the fair play Zoom call with 4 devices, all with share screen enabled.  There will be 14 official commentary streams and 9 unofficial streams to choose from.  The international auxiliary language commentary will be led by IM Susanto Esperanto.