These were also the days when there wasn’t live internet coverage. I remember buying the official match newsletter for one of the Kasparov-Karpov matches. I think it was 1990. It arrived in the mail a day or two after each game with some good analysis. It was always so exciting to come home from school to one of these two to three page write-us. I’d immediately sit down on the couch and play it out on the coffee table.

To relive that experience, though at a much accelerated pace, I’ve filled in the gaps on FIDE’s wallchart HERE, which I’ll be keeping up to date as each match completes. You can see some of the big names are already through to the next round based on no-shows.

Yesterday, Round 1 tiebreaks saw Kadimova taking Paehtz to an Armageddon game before the latter pulled it out. Surely not the start she must’ve expected. The other tiebreak victors were Katerine Rohonyan (missed mentioning she’s another American in the competition) who defeated Zhukova, Socko over Foisor in an Armageddon, Moser against Mkrtchian (6 letters before we see a vowel), and Ju over Bojkovic.