Chess speaks for itself

‘Plug the fucking laptop in!’ Hans Niemann, the lively 19-year-old from the US, was left fuming – understandably – after his loss to Jan-Krzysztof Duda at the FTX Crypto Cup in Miami. The organisers set up the equipment, but Duda’s laptop ran out of juice at a tense moment when both players had about a minute remaining. By the time it was resolved, Duda had gained several minutes to think and found an accurate continuation, posing difficult problems in the endgame. An exasperated Niemann lost the game, and collapsed in the next two as well, losing a clean 3-0 sweep in the four-game match.

The technical mishap was all the more absurd since the players were all at the same venue in Miami, and could just as well have played mano a mano. But this event, the FTX Crypto Cup, was the latest in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, the series of online rapid events initiated by Magnus Carlsen during the pandemic.