Norway Chess postponed until October

Altibox Norway Chess was set to open in the Clarion Hotel Energy in Stavanger on June 1st, but the supertournament featuring World Champion Magnus Carlsen and 8 more of the world's top 11 players has now been moved to October due to the coronavirus situation. The new dates are October 3-17. Vladimir Kramnik and Judit Polgar are still expected to commentate, with the tournament retaining last year’s formula of a classical game followed by potential Armageddon.

Fabiano Caruana spoilt the final day of last year's Norway Chess for Magnus Carlsen, but the World Champion had already won the tournament with a round to spare | photo: Lennart Ootes, Altibox Norway Chess

The Altibox Norway Chess organisers today released a press release explaining the decision, including:

Altibox Norway Chess is an international event with players and crew arriving from more than 10 different countries. The period of uncertainty we all are in now creates difficulty in the planning for us as organizers. Furthermore, it is highly uncertain what the status of the pandemic will be in June and what the consequences it will have for the tournament.

With this we have considered various alternatives and are now very pleased to have found a new time for the tournament after clearing the dates with FIDE (World Chess Federation), players, hotel/venue location, broadcasters and our largest partners.

This is the planned line-up for Norway Chess, with most of the players having approved the new dates (ratings are the current live ratings, which are unlikely to change for quite some time):

As you can see, it’s going to be a tough event for young local star Aryan Tari!

So that’s one event to add to the hoped for calendar for later in the year, but right now we have no idea when normal chess life may resume. All over-the-board tournaments have been cancelled for the foreseeable future, including the Olympiad, which is now postponed to 2021, but at least there’s still life online. You don't get moments quite like this in normal chess tournaments!

That was from yesterday's English vs. Spanish battle, while today we have Jan Gustafsson playing Banter Blitz at 12:00 CET, with Lawrence Trent and Jon Ludvig Hammer set to follow later in the day.

For the full up-to-date schedule check out our Live shows and events page.