AAI Tournament Underway With A Bang

The inaugural AAI International Chess Tournament (previewed here) is underway in New Delhi, India, and an exciting first round produced a hat trick of decisive results.

It was a bad opening day for the hosts, with Krishnan Sasikiran and Parimarjan Negi both losing to Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana respectively.

The lowest ranked player, 17 year-old women's world champion Hou Yifan of China also suffered a reversal against Viktor Laznicka.

At the opening ceremony: Left to right, So, Caruana, Hou, Laznicka, Negi, Sasikiran

The tournament has a total prize fund of US$24,500 with the winner taking home $8,000.

The time control is 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by 20 moves in one hour, followed by 15 minutes plus 30 seconds for all the remaining moves.

The official website with live game broadcasts, lots of pictures, and even videos (see below) is here, and the Facebook page is here.

Interviews with the players in the video start at 5 min 15 seconds.