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Thanks to Netflix and the Internet, chess has seen a boom like never before, and this year will be exciting too.

Russia, of all places, is likely to become even more important in 2021 - despite the CAS ruling to exclude the sporting nation until 2022.

Online chess is an absolute hit: the platform “Chess.com” announced its fifty millionth member at Christmas.

And at least one hundred million people have watched the Queen's Gambit, which has been streamed on Netflix for two months.

A group of companies was created around world champion Magnus Carlsen, which was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange in October and is currently worth 110 million euros.

Your product: online chess in all its facets.

This includes a Champions Chess Tour initiated by the Norwegian Carlsen himself for 1.5 million dollars in prize money.

It is not only broadcast on chess channels, but also on Eurosport.

Chess betting is also booming

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However, new factors come into play in online chess.

Some games are decided by an unfortunate movement of the computer mouse or because the Internet connection is lost.

Many a loser was later declared a winner because an algorithm in the opposing game detected a suspicious number of matches with computer moves.

In the final of the international Pro Chess League, Tigran Petrosyan, who twice won the Chess Olympiad with Armenia, is said to have cheated.

Last week, the former U20 world champion Parham Maghsoodloo was transferred from Iran on the “Lichess” platform.

Vincent Keymer is the youngest grandmaster in German chess history

Source: pa / dpa / Georgios So / Georgios Souleidis

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When all international sporting events were canceled in mid-March, the World Cup Candidates' tournament was started in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Not only did it get the brain teaser headlines, it got bookmakers' attention.

Suddenly almost all of them were offering chess bets.

Cas judgment against Russia

Halfway through the rounds, the determination of Carlsen's next World Championship challenger was suspended.

It was officially justified with the discontinuation of scheduled flights.

Only: A chess tournament that received worldwide attention no longer suited the Russian government's Covid-19 strategy, which was switched from “Everything under control” to Lockdown.

Magnus Carlsen, reigning world champion, has launched his own online tournament

Source: dpa / Dmitri Lovetsky

Even before the judgment of the International Sports Court Cas against Russia, the world chess federation Fide was a sports-political bastion of the Kremlin.

At its head is Arkady Dvorkovich - Deputy Prime Minister of Russia until 2018.

Eighty percent of the Fide sponsors come from this country.

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The 2022 Chess Olympiad was held in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

Because of the economic crisis, the ruler Alexander Lukashenko wanted to get rid of the event in June.

Now the national competition is to take place in Moscow.

Will the World Cup in Dubai burst?

Russia is also stepping in at the men's and women's World Cups, prize money and the number of participants increased.

The Russians are spending at least three million euros on the little-noticed World Cups.

The game is to be played in Sochi in July 2021.

The Candidates Tournament should be brought to an end in Yekaterinburg next spring.

Dvorkovich does not rule out that individuals, especially the Chinese Ding Liren and Wang Hao, continue to play online under the supervision of an arbitrator.

If the world exhibition in Dubai and with it the World Cup planned there for November bursts, Russia must not step into the breach: According to Cas judgment, world championships are only allowed there again from 2023.