The ALRUD Law Firm team played well in the 1st FIDE Online World Corporate Chess Championship

The 1st FIDE Online World Corporate Chess Championship took place on February 19-21. The competition was organised by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), with Chess.com (the world's number one chess website) designated as the hosting platform, and was broadcast live on Chess.com, Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and other international streaming platforms. The broadcast was in many languages, including Russian. More information about the event can be found here.

288 teams from 78 countries entered the tournament, including some of the largest corporations in the world - a total of almost 1500 players, including 36 invited grandmasters. The participating teams were divided into 8 groups. Only the winners of each group were allowed to play in the final.

We are proud to inform you that ALRUD Law Firm scored well in the tournament. Our team started in Group E with 14th place, and finished 11th out of 38 teams. After two qualifying rounds (6 matches, each consisting of 4 games for 10 minutes each) ALRUD Law Firm got 3 wins, 2 draws and only 1 defeat - from the winner of our group.

ALRUD Law Firm team was represented by German Zakharov, Partner, Head of the Antitrust Practice – Team Captain; Timur Akhundov, Senior Associate (Corporate, Banking and Finance, Business Regulation); Kamilla Goncharova, Knowledge Management Director; Boris Pribylov, Senior Attorney (Corporate, Business Regulation). Our invited player is Vladimir Malakhov, a Russian chess grandmaster, a member of the Russian team that won gold at the 2009 World Team Chess Championship, and the winner of the 2009 European Rapid Chess Championship.

ALRUD is one of only two law firms in the world to participate in the Championship, and the only law firm from Russia. Russia was also represented by Skolkovo, Rambler, Yandex, Kaspersky, VKontakte, MTS, Pulkovo, Aeroflot and others - 28 teams in total.

There was no entry fee for this competition. However, FIDE has organised a fund-raiser in cooperation with the platform Softgiving, and participating teams and companies and their supporters are encouraged to donate towards one of three social projects currently being developed by FIDE: Chess in Education programs for underprivileged children, Chess for people with Disabilities, and the FIDE veterans support program.

The period to make donations is open until February 26, 2021. If you also want to contribute, you can do it through this link.