The Regency Chess Company was delighted to receive an invitation to the opening ceremony for the 2013 world chess London candidates tournament. The event took place last week on Thursday March 14th. Regency Chess Company founder Julian Deverell attended as did Darren Whiteman, the freelance web designer responsible for our Industry leading website.
Who was there?
The event was attended by some of the biggest names in chess including Magnus Carlsen & Vladimir Kramnik. Other key figures in the chess playing community were there as well as a number of key chess retail industry figures from around Europe. Representatives from the Times newspaper and the joint forces chess association were also there. The media entrepreneur Andrew Paulson was there to host the event as the founder of AGON which now has exclusive rights from the World Chess Federation to develop, organize and commercialize the World Chess Championship cycle.
What makes this event so important?
AGON were awarded the rights in 2012 which makes this event the first of it’s kind in the United Kingdom. AGON are about to bring chess back where it belongs, back in front of a mainstream audience. On display at the event were examples of the newly developed chess casting system. Chess casting has the ability to visually show an audience what is happening within a game of chess. The system uses chess computer engine technology to display digestible metrics to an audience, this alone makes chess more suitable for television as even a non chess players attention can be stolen and their interest fixed firmly on the screen.
The event also saw the unveiling of a brand new chess set. The World Chess Official Tournament Set which is set to become the new standard in chess tournaments around the world.
A New Tournament Chess Set Brand
Andrew Paulson made a very valid point during his speech, that there was no brand of chess set in the world. Of course various retailers have set up their own mini brands, but there hasn’t been a world recognised chess brand since the original Staunton chessmen of the mid eighteen hundreds.
This is about to change with the launch of the official world chess tournament chess set, a newly designed set that is the result of a collaboration between AGON and Studio Anne Carlton who will be responsible for distributing the set in the UK. The Regency Chess Company have of course been selected as one of the key retailers for this set. Expect to see a lot of this new chess set in the future, on your screens as well as your boards.
