Chess underwater! Hans Niemann defeats Fabiano Caruana to win unique diving event in Cape Town

In this event, players make their moves on a small chess set placed 110 centimetres deep at the bottom of a swimming pool. After moving, a player surfaces to catch their breath, at which point their opponent must immediately dive to make the next move.

From the pool, Niemann proudly showed his medal to the applause of local supporters, before later facing Diving Chess World Champion Michal Mazurkiewicz. Mazurkiewicz won a rook and pawn for a bishop after a blunder by Niemann as early as move two, but the American grandmaster ultimately outplayed his specialist opponent to win that game as well.

The Diving Chess competition was the first of several side events during the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals.

Meanwhile, other Finals participants, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, and Vincent Keymer, visited the University of the Western Cape, where they met about 200 fans of all ages, most of them members of local Cape Town chess clubs, for a simultaneous exhibition.

Carlsen and Aronian played a tandem simul, alternating moves against 20 boards. They won 15 games, drew one, and lost four. Keymer and his coach, Peter Leko, remained undefeated, winning 18 games and drawing two.

The simuls also featured streamers Anna Cramling, Dina Belenkaya, and Niklas Steenfatt. Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo was also present and played blitz against fans for two and a half hours. Despite using just 30 seconds on his clock against opponents’ five minutes (with a one-second increment per move), he still won every game.

Arjun Erigaisi and Vidit Gujrathi are the two Indians who will be featuring in the Freestyle Grand Slam finals.