“Four days left,” tweeted Sergey Karjakin on Friday. It is no ordinary match the former World rapid and blitz chess champion is looking forward to.
In the game on June 9, Karjakin, who had challenged Magnus Carlsen unsuccessfully for the 2016 World championship (classical), is representing Earth which will take on Space. That day will mark the 50th anniversary of the first-ever chess game between Earth and Space.
Space is being represented by the two Russian cosmonauts, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. They will make their moves from the International Space Station (ISS), which is some 408 km away from the surface of the Earth. Karjakin will be seated at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, Moscow, during the game which will be streamed live by the Russian Chess Federation.
In the first match between Earth and Space, in 1970, Andrian Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanov matched wits against Viktor Gorbakto and Nikolai Kamanin. The game was drawn.
In 2008-09, NASA and the US Chess Federation had organised a match between Earth and Space. Nobody would have imagined then that another match like that would take place at a time when the entire (sporting) world is locked down by a virus.
