World Champion Blitz

There I was trying to make a choice for this edition of Video Friday. Most of the clips on my short list were from the Belgian leg of the Grand Chess Tour, which took place a couple of weeks ago. While I was reviewing these, my four-year-old granddaughter wandered into my office, made a comment about the clutter, climbed onto my lap, and asked what I was doing. I told her I was trying to choose a video from Youtube -- she knows all about it from watching 'Dora' clips -- and she pointed at this one.

Kramnik vs Carlsen - YourNextMove Grand Chess Tour Blitz - Round 5 (26:49) • 'The Your Next Move Grand Chess Tour is being held in the Historic Town Hall of Leuven, Belgium from 17-20 June.'

The description continued,

The second stage of the 2016 Grand Chess Tour (Paris, Leuven, Saint Louis, London), it sees Viswanathan Anand join Paris winner Hikaru Nakamura, World Champion Magnus Carlsen and seven more of the world's top players to compete for a $150,000 prize fund.

9 rounds of rapid chess (25 minutes + 10 seconds a move) are played on the first 2 days, with wins worth 2 points. 18 rounds of blitz (5 + 2) follow on the final 2 days, with wins worth 1 point. The event is sponsored by Your Next Move, a non-profit organisation promoting chess as an educational tool.

While I was explaining to my granddaughter who the players were, she noticed the water bottles on the chess table, declared that she was thirsty, and wandered out. It's a great choice for a video, but I discovered while writing this post that the original is Your Next Move Grand Chess Tour: Blitz Round 5 - Kramnik vs. Carlsen, from Chess24. The embedded video above isn't even an extract from a long clip; it's a straight copy of the original and will probably disappear when the copyright violation is signaled.

At one point IM Malcolm Pein appears in front of the camera and is identified as the 'Grand Chess Tour Director'. For more from him, see a post on my World Championship blog, Dailymotion Chess. For more about the tournament (in French), see Chess on Belgian News.