Phase Two of FWFRCC Underway

Last month's post, Titled Players Join the FWFRCC, reported on the second phase of the biggest chess960 tournament ever held, where FWFRCC means 'FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship'. Although other variations of that awkward acronym are in use, that's the one I pulled from an early page announcing the event, and that's the one I'll continue to use.

The plans call for six days of play, two tournaments per day, 7 players qualifying per tournament. Half of the 12 tournaments have been held, with the results available at World Fischer Random Championship: Qualified Players. The page mentions, 'The last four [sic] FIDE World Fischer Random Titled Qualifier events will take place on August 4.' The full schedule is shown in the following image.

Schedule (frchess.com)

Some well known players have already qualified, like chess960 specialist GM Andrey Deviatkin in the third event, and former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov in the fifth. Chess.com, the host for the online events, doesn't require players to use their real names as identifiers, making it often problematic to recognize specific players. It does, however, require titled players to prove their identity. By the time of this blog's next report on the event, the third phase 'Knockout Qualifiers' should have already started.