In February 2018, there may be an unusual exhibition match held between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, playing chess960 (also known as Fischer Random). The competition is planned for the Hening Onstad Art Center in Baerum, Norway. It's funding is not yet fully secured, but Carlsen's manager is confident.
This relates to a blog post from this past summer, First the Non-routine News, (July 2017), that quoted Twitter: 'There are serious plans to organize a FischerRandom / Chess960 World Championship in Norway next year!'. As I reported a few months earlier in GM Blitz Battle PGN (March 2017), the same players met earlier this year in an event that included chess960: 'Chess.com report on the final match, Carlsen - Nakamura [...] Nakamura would go on to take 2.5/3 in the three iterations of chess960'.
The second development is an evolution of that GM Blitz Battle, another event organized by Chess.com: 2017 Speed Chess Championship Schedule, Results, Information (May 2017, but kept up to date as the matches are played). The final match will take place end-December:-
The 2017 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship features 16 of the world's best chess players in an innovative eSports bracket tournament. [...] Each 2017 Speed Chess Championship match will feature 90 minutes of 5/2 blitz, 60 minutes of 3/2 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1/1 bullet chess. One chess960 game will be played in each time control at the end of each time period.
The third development stems from a post last week on my main blog, Understanding Lombardy, where I wrote,
It turns out that the fastest way to understand Lombardy is to study his book, 'Understanding Chess: My System, My Games, My Life'.
Early in the book (p.21), Lombardy observed,
Sadly, Nimzovich died at 48, far too young for a chance to expand on his thinking and summarize that thinking into a true system, for his first work (My System, 1925) can hardly be considered a "system", but rather a collection of interesting games in which Dr. Nimzo offers advice on strategy and how to recognize and avoid mistakes. Yet his thoughts provided a foundation towards advancing chess strategy, even to my recommendation of the super-version of Fischer Random Chess!
This passage is significant for two reasons. First, I've often thought that Nimzovich would have been a brilliant chess960 player, given his penchant for unusual openings and deep strategical concepts. Second, given Lombardy's claim that 'I was Bobby's only chess teacher from [end-1954], and right through Reykjavik', any further thoughts on Fischer and chess960 are bound to be relevant. I'm slowly making my way through the book and will report any further discoveries on this blog.
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