The International Chess Federation and Chess.com announce the Online Nations Cup, a team competition held May 5-10, 2020. Six teams are due to take part in this competition: Russia, USA, Europe, China, India, plus a team representing the “Rest of the World.”
This epoch-making battle draws some similarities with golf’s Ryder Cup, or with the 1970 “USSR vs. Rest of the World” chess match-up that made headlines in Bobby Fischer’s heyday. But the new “match of the century” will be more global, entirely online, and also gender-inclusive, since the team line-ups must include at least one female player.
Two retired legends, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik, will be the captains for the European and Indian teams respectively. A former world championship rival of both of them, Viswanathan Anand, will defend the first board of the Indian team.