Today I bring readers news about two forth coming opportunities to test their skills against Grandmasters. These kinds of events don’t happen all that often so listen up!
First of all my friends at Leeds Chess Club are hosting a simultaneous display by British Grandmaster Daniel Gormally (currently the UK’s number 18) on Saturday the 14th of August — yes, that is this coming Saturday! At the time of posting there are still 9 places left for this event and so the organisers have decided to give players from other clubs the opportunity to take part. The event starts at 2.30pm and takes place at the North Leeds Working Men’s Club. The entry fee is £7.50.
More information can be found on the Leeds Chess Club website. If you’d like to take part please e-mail the event organiser at tony@leedschessclub.org
I will be attending this event myself so if anyone would like to take part and needs a lift from Hebden Bridge please let me know as soon as possible so that I can arrange to pick you up. Either add a comment to this post or e-mail me at hebdenbridgechessclub@gmail.com. News on how I get on against GM Gormally will appear here next week.
Now onto the big one! Fashion brand G-Star Raw are (slightly bizarrely I must confess) organising “Magnus Against The World”, a collaborative game against the Danish wunderkind and youngest ever world number 1, Magnus Carlsen (pictured above modelling for G-Star). The game will be played online on Friday the 10th of September and has none other than Garry Kasparov (Carlsen’s current trainer) acting as ambassador for the event. Three top Grandmasters (Maxime Vachier-Legrave, Hikaru Nakamura and Judit Polgar) have been selected to nominate candidate moves to the general public who will vote on which move gets played at the board.
As far as I’m aware this kind of event has never been tried before and it should offer a fascinating insight into Grandmaster play as well as the opportunity to take part in the biggest collaborative chess game ever! I encourage you all to register for the event and news updates.