Wonderful Chess Circus

Two Americans, Hikaru Nakamura and Vasik Rajlich, became world champions at the Chess Classic in Mainz, Germany, last week. They won their titles in Chess960, an adjusted version of Bobby Fischer's random chess, in which a computer reshuffles the pieces behind the pawns before the start of each game. (There are 960 positions possible, hence the name.) Nakamura won the Chess960 Rapid World Championship, smashing the Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian 3½-½ in the final. Rajlich won the Livingston Chess960 World Championship, a computer competition, after his program, Rybka, defeated Shredder by a score of 3-1. The Russian grandmaster Alexander Grischuk won the FiNet Open, a rapid Chess960 event, with 9½ points in 11 games, a half-point ahead of the American GM Gata Kamsky and former FIDE world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan.

The Chess Classic is the brainchild of Hans Walter Schmitt, who perfected his vision, a combination of Chess960 and Rapid tournaments, over the period of several years. He sometimes moonlights as a manager of the world champion Vishy Anand. The Indian grandmaster came to Mainz this year to defend his title in the Grenkeleasing Rapid World Championship, but was knocked out in the preliminaries. Aronian became the new titleholder, winning the final match against the Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi, with the score 3-1. Clearly, the most popular event of the chess festival is the Ordix Open, a rapid competition serving as a qualifier for the next year's Grenkeleasing championship. It attracted nearly 700 players, including 67 grandmasters. GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan won it with a 10-1 score.