Who is going to Dubai for the World Championship 2021?
The Algorand Online Series has come to an end and the Indian GM Abhijeet Gupta is the one going to Dubai for the upcoming Championship Match between the reigning World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, and Russia’s number 1, Ian Nepomniachtchi.
After winning the qualifying tournament, Gupta dominated at the final, followed by the Indian IM Pranav V, and IM Zhanat Saiyn from Kazakhstan.
Gupta is an Indian GM, the first player to win the Commonwealth Chess Championship five times! Starting from a very young age, Gupta had many memorable successes. In 2008, he won the World Junior Chess Championship in Gaziantep, Turkey, ahead of many other strong players, including Maxim Rodshtein, David Howell, and Hou Yifan. He is the third Indian to win this prestigious championship, after Viswanathan Anand and Pentala Harikrishna. Gupta also played for the Indian national team in the 2012 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey, where he won an individual silver medal thanks to his rating performance of 2746 on board 4. In 2016, he won the Reykjavik Open, and in 2020 the 8th Delhi international open with a score of 8.5/10.
In an interview taken by GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko right after Gupta’s big win at the Algorand Online Series, the Indian GM revealed many things about his chess career so far and he also made a statement about the World Championship: “I’m really hoping that the match is going to be really close. Ian is one of those guys who can also beat Magnus in the faster time control, but I would still say Magnus is the favorite. Like, any day you would pick Magnus. If you had to put your money on someone, who would you pick?”
World Chess streamed the finals on Youtube with commentator GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko, and the special guest WGM Dina Belenkaya.
The second winner, IM Pranav V, received the famous Academy chess set, the first-ever set that is produced in plastic in exactly the same design as the famous official World Chess Championship set that is used in the World Chess Championship matches and Grand Prix, and the third winner, IM Zhanat Saiyn, got a one-year subscription to the FIDE Online Arena!
Congratulations to everyone who participated and see you soon at the upcoming FOA tournaments!
