Kasparov pledges more support for African chess
Millions of chess players were glued to their laptops and smart phones yesterday to watch the return of Garry Kasparov to the chess board.
Garry Kasparov has come out of his retirement to play in the St Louis Rapid & Blitz event which runs from 13th to 19th August 2017 at the St Louis Chess Club & Scholastic Centre. The event has some of the top players in the world including Leinier Dominguez, Le Quang Liem, David Navara, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Vishwanathan Anand, Sergey Karjakin and Fabiano Caruana for 9 rounds of rapid and 18 rounds of blitz.
In the pre-event tournament interview Garry pledged that whatever he wins will go to support chess in Africa which will continue the good work his foundation Kasparov Chess Foundation is doing on the continent.
Garry’s first game was against Sergey Karjakin which ended up in a fighting draw.
Garry Kasparov v Sergey Karjakin
The game of the day had to be Levon Aronian brilliant game against David Navara. A Knight sacrifice followed by an exchange sacrifice. No wonder Levon Aronian is a hero in his home country Armenia!
Levon Aronian v David Navara
The other highlight of the day was the painful loss by Fabiano Caruana who was in a winning position against Le Quang Liem.
Le Quang Liem v Fabiano Caruana
I leave you with a fine photo from the 2012 Chess Olympiad with the hero of the day GM Levon Aronian.
Links
Garry Kasparov was supposed to come to Nairobi in 1985.
