Magnus Carlsen will make a rare appearance in an open tournament when the Norwegian world No 1 competes in the 10-round Super Rapid at the XTX Markets London Classic on December 5-6. The event takes place at the Novotel West in Hammersmith, featuring a time limit of 15 minutes per player for the entire game with a 10-second increment per move, and is expected to reach its 500-competitor capacity.
Tournament Details and Field
Following the announcement of Carlsen’s participation, tournament entries doubled within 12 hours and are nearing 400. Chief arbiter Alex Holowczak advised players to enter promptly to secure a spot. The Super Rapid uses a standard top-half against bottom-half pairing system, with the split likely falling in the low 1800s rating range, giving one competitor the chance to face Carlsen in the opening round.
While Carlsen enters as the favourite, the tournament’s structure leaves no margin for error, with a potential 9.5 out of 10 score needed for outright victory. Competitors include Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Anish Giri, and Levon Aronian, all of whom have previously defeated Carlsen, alongside a strong contingent of English juniors.
Recent Form and Other Chess News
Carlsen has won the main London Classic event a record four times in 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2015. He is using the Super Rapid as a warm-up before defending his World Rapid and World Blitz titles in Istanbul in late December. Concurrently, Carlsen has been competing in Budapest for the pilot Total World Championship, where he won an opening blitz tie-break tournament and secured draws against Anish Giri and Abhimanyu Mishra.
Meanwhile, 65-year-old English Grandmaster Keith Arkell is competing for a medal at the World Senior 65+ Championship in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia. After winning his opening four games, drawing subsequent matches, and suffering a round nine defeat to Israeli IM Alexander Mikhalevski, Arkell sits on 6.5 points after nine rounds, while Zurab Sturua leads with 7.5 points ahead of the final two rounds on Friday and Saturday.
