Magnus Carlsen vs Sergey Karjakin - World Chess Championship 2016 underway !
The biggest chess event of the year is here ! Magnus Carlsen , the current World Chess Champion from Norway faces Sergey Karjakin of Russia in a 12 game match held at New York, USA. The match is taking place between 11–30 November in the renovated Fulton Market Building in the South Street Seaport in New York City. If the score is tied after 12 games, a four-game rapid chess match will be played, then five two-game matches of blitz chess if necessary, and finally, an Armageddon game will be used to break the tie. A short summary of the event -
Magnus Carlsen enters as the heavy favorite to win the championship. He has been the World Chess Champion for 3 years now.
Sergey Karjakin earned his shot at the World Championship by virtue of winning Candidates 2016, a tournament organized to determine the challenger for the World Champion.
This is the first World Championship to be held in USA since 1995 when Garry Kasparov of Russia played Vishy Anand of India atop the World Trade Center.
The two contestants are competing for a prize fund of at least 1 million euros.
As of August 2016, Carlsen and Karjakin have played each other 21 times (at long time controls) with Carlsen leading 4 wins to 1 with 16 draws. Their most recent encounter was at the July Bilbao double round robin tournament, where Carlsen won one game while the other was drawn. Although Carlsen is the odds-on favorite, Karjakin is not to be taken lightly. He is a former chess prodigy and holds the record for the World's youngest Grandmaster, having qualified for this title at the age of 12 years and 7 months. Stay tuned for more updates as we bring you all the action from the World Championship !