Norway Chess, Sigeman Postponed

Roughly a year after it started to disrupt the chess calendar completely, the COVID-19 pandemic is still doing just that. Both the Sigeman tournament (scheduled for April) and Norway Chess (planned for May) have been postponed.

The Tepe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament was one of the first events to be canceled last year. The 2021 edition was one to look forward to, as the organizers had managed to contract none other than GM Anatoly Karpov.

The 12th world champion would be playing his first serious tournament under a classical time control in 12 years. He was going to compete with GMs Nils Grandelius, Alexei Shirov, David Navara, Le Quang Liem, Jorden van Foreest, Harika Dronavalli, and Nihal Sarin.

In a statement on the tournament website, tournament director Johan Berntsen announced that the current situation with the coronavirus forced them to move the tournament: “The current restrictions imposed by the EU and the Swedish government [have] once again made it impossible to continue planning this event. But, right now we are investigating the possibility to go through with the tournament later this year instead (somewhere in August-October).”

Not long after, another major event was postponed: the Norway Chess tournament. Scheduled for May 9-21, the field of participants so far announced had GMs Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, Levon Aronian, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Wesley So, Alireza Firouzja, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Aryan Tari.

The reasons for the postponement are the same. The new dates have been already announced: September 7-18.

“We were prepared to organize the tournament in May as we managed to organize the tournament in October 2020 in the middle of the pandemic,” said project manager Benedicte Westre Skog. “However, with closed borders in Norway and several other countries, it becomes impossible to plan and go through with the event in May.”

The field might look a little different but several have confirmed to participate in September, including Carlsen.

The next big event is going to be the FIDE Candidates Tournament. The second half starts April 20, again in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

You can find all upcoming, major events at Chess.com/calendar.