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About this episode

The first half of the 2. FiNet Chess960 Rapid World Championship produced entertaining though not perfect chess. It also showed that Alexandra Kosteniuk was able to handle the challenge of the limited time and the uncommon opening position best. After three rounds she leads with 2.5 points, followed by Kateryna Lahno with 2 points. Victorija Cmilyte scored 1.5 points while Natalia Zhukova had three promising positions and spoiled them all in time trouble to still remain on zero. Playing with a time limit of 20 minutes plus 5 seconds increment per move time proved to a crucial factor in all games. Having no theory to rely on, the players had to think right from the start and very often had only minutes left to realize possible advantages gained before. But judging from their relaxed and animated chat after the games, they all seemed to have a good time in Mainz

• Release Date

  Jul 30, 2008

• Runtime

  04:46