Chess player’s heart rate tops out at 168bpm in opening clash at Esports World Cup; Carlsen and Hikaru win opening matches – Esports News UK

Vladislav Artemiev, rating 2748, was taking on fellow Grandmaster Levon Aronian, rating 2812, in Chess at the Esports World Cup when his heart rate reached a stratospheric 168 bpm in the contest in Riyadh. Faced with no time left on the clock, the Russian rushed to take his moves before ultimately running out of time and losing Game 1 of their contest.

Chess’s roots date back to the 7th Century, but the Esports World Cup has introduced a number of modern measures to spice up the Chess tournament at the event. These include playing on PCs on LAN, time restrictions for the players, and a heart rate monitor attached to each player’s arm.

The heart rate monitors give watchers insight into when the players themselves feel under pressure, in the highly time-restricted format at EWC. For Artemiev, his heart rate coincided with the conclusion of the first game between the two.

For a healthy adult, a 168bpm heart rate generally correlates to heavy physical activity, however, the 27-year-old Russian was simply sitting in a gaming chair in one of Riyadh’s esports studios for the Esports World Cup.

Who said Chess couldn’t be exhilarating?

Chess at EWC’s unique time format

Chess at the Esports World Cup operates on a 10+0 basis. That means that each player has 10 minutes at the start of the game, and no increment. No increment means there is no wiggle room. Once your time is up, you forfeit the match, with the opponent taking the flag victory.

With Artemiev taking his time early in the match, he was forced to play extremely quickly at the end of the match, typically pre-moving to save his remaining seconds.

The strategy meant Aronian himself ended the match with only 3 seconds left on his clock, but with the game state even at a Rook and King each, Artemiev could not keep up the pace as he lost with 168bpm on the heart rate monitor.

Aronian, having come through the LCQ, which saw Hans Niemann lose out after falling afoul of the clock, seemed more comfortable in the time-restricted format throughout.

Artemiev recovered from his first game nerves to win Game 2, but Levon Aronian made a confidently low bid in the ‘Armageddon’ tiebreaker to claim black, meaning a draw or win would guarantee him victory. The draw came, with Aronian actually ending with more time and fully in control, as Aronian took the series victory.

Aronian is representing Team Reject at the event, with Artemiev playing for Team Spirit.

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Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen win opening matches at EWC

Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen justified their pre-tournament favourite labels, winning in both of their opening games at the Esports World Cup.

Game 1 for Hikaru felt comfortable for the FIDE Number 2. In game two, Hikaru was pushed to the edge against Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov, representing Vitality at the EWC, The Falcons representative fought back from a disadvantaged board state to take the second game, starting on Black in a 60-move victory.

Carlsen began on White against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and took full advantage of that fact in a mid-game that slowly manipulated Carlsen into the advantage. A late-game ‘blunder’ by Nodirbek fully decided the contest, as the Kazakh conceded soon after. On Black, the match played out in similar fashion but ended in a draw as Carlsen knew that was all he needed to progress in the bracket.

Carlsen described his strategy in the game to maintain pressure and play quickly to get a time advantage, pointing out that Nodirbek perhaps played too quickly in making the Game 1 deciding blunder.

“Overall, I felt good, I was just trying to play by intuition and flow,” said Carlsen after the victory.

The heartbeat monitor at least proved Carlsen was human in a sense, as the Norwegian’s heart rate peaked at over 100 bpm against Nodirbek.