Dinh Lap Nhan can fight Carlsen
After winning the world championship in April 2023, Dinh only played one more tournament due to a pre-planned Superbet Chess Classic. Since then, he has not participated in any major tournaments, whether online or on the chessboard. After a four-month break, the Chinese player decided to return when he received an invitation to the Finals of the Speed Chess Championship.
Speed Chess Championship is an online speed chess tournament considered by Carlsen to be the most attractive today because of the combination of chess and super lightning. Each match lasts for 180 minutes, of which 90 minutes of 5+1 chess (five minutes for each side, one second after each move), 60 minutes of 3+1 and 30 minutes of 1+1.
This year's tournament brings together 11 invited players, and five qualified. The tournament takes place from September 4 to September 22, knockout format to choose the champion. The prize fund of the tournament is 140,000 USD, in which the champion receives 15,000 USD and an additional bonus based on the difference in the score.
According to the standard chess hierarchy, Carlsen is at the top with Elo 2,839, and Dinh is fourth with Elo 2,780. As for blitz chess, the Norwegian player is second with Elo 2,887, while the Chinese player has Elo 2,787.
Besides Dinh and Carlsen, the remaining players participating include defending champion Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Nihal Sarin, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Alireza Firouzja, Arjun Erigaisi, Gukesh Dommaraju, Du Uuong Y, Vidit Gujrathi, Alexey Sarana and Dmitry Andreikin. India contributed four players to the tournament, the largest on the list.
The Speed Chess Championship has been held seven times, with Carlsen winning the first two, but Nakamura has dominated the last five. The 2022 final took place just a few hours after the FIFA World Cup final, when Nakamura defeated Carlsen by a close score of 14.5-13.5. This match attracted tens of thousands of simultaneous views, and was highly appreciated by the chess village for both professionalism and entertainment.
