FIDE Online Nations Cup

MANILA, Philippines — A selection of the world’s elite players will see action next week as the FIDE Online Nations Cup Invitational gets underway May 5 to 10.

A microcosm of the world team championship, the Nations Cup is a six-team, double round-robin match play competition, in which the top two teams after 10 rounds face off for the super final championship.

Each team will be composed of four regular players (three men and one woman), with one male and one female as reserves. Time control is 25 minutes plus 10 seconds increment per move for each player to finish the game.

Team China, the reigning Olympiad gold medalists (men and women), headlines the prestigious event as the No. 1 seed. The field included Team Europe, Russia, USA, India and Team Rest of the World.

World champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway), will not be appearing. He may be over chessed,  following a 16-game Banter Blitz Cup finals last month and another 28 games of speed chess in the ongoing chess.24 online Carlsen Invitational.

However, the fledgling online tournament will still showcase eight of the world’s top 10 and 12 of the top 30, including a former world champion, three women’s world champions and emerging young stars.

The official list of players are as follows: Team China: Ding Liren, Wang Hao, Wei Yi, Hou Yifan, Yu Yangi and Ju Wenjun; Team Europe: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Levon Aronian, Anish Giri, Anna Muzychuk, Jan-Krzystof Duda and Nana Dzagnidze; Team Russia: Ian Nepomniachtchi, Vladislav Artemiev, Sergey Kariakin, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Dmitry Andreikin and Olga Girya; Team USA: Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Irina Krush, Leinier Dominguez Perez and Anna Zatonshih; Team India: Viswanathan Anand, Vidit Gujrathi, Pentala Harikrishna, Humpy Konero, Adhiban Baskaran and Harika Dronavalli;. Team Rest of the World: Teimour Radjabov, Alireza Firoujza, Bassem Amin, Mariya Muzychuk, Jorge Cori and Dinara Saduakassova.