OSLO: On the third floor of the Deichman Bjorvika, Norway's National Library, four of the world's top 10 men's chess players are engaged in a furious battle of wits over the chess board. In one of the boards, Magnus Carlsen, one of the country's biggest stars, is hovering over the chess board, deep in thought. He's facing Alireza Firouzja, an Iranian-French GM. A couple of chairs away is D Gukesh, the reigning world champion.
On Sunday night, Gukesh and Carlsen sat next to each other during Norway Chess' pre-tournament press conference. Less than 24 hours later, Gukesh, with the white pieces against Vincent Keymer, one of his seconds for the 2024 World Championship match, is in the tank.
At first glance, this looks like an everyday chess event. But, in reality, this really isn't. The capacity crowd sit in silence but if they ever get bored, they can always walk to the floor above this to pick a book on Adolf Hitler. There's a book on Philip Kotler, the guru who wrote many of the earliest literature on management. If the fourth floor doesn't interest the reader, there are some books on music in the playing hall, within handshaking distance of the paying public.
They can always come out and decide to pick up a Batman comic book. The Library, intentionally built to resemble a stack of books in 2020, houses over 400,000 books. There are also board games like Ticket2Ride (incidentally kept in a shelf in the playing hall behind the players.
So, how did a national library become the setting for one of the biggest Classical tournaments of the year? "We have always tried to develop the tournament from year to year," Kjell Madland, the tournament CEO, said. "It's always nice to try different things." This year, that meant taking Norway Chess from Stavanger, a small town in Norway's Southwest, to the country's capital.
Because the same team is about to put together a tennis Grand Slam-style Total Chess World Championship from 2027, Madland & Co. thought it would also be 'good training for the organisation' to move away from their 'home' in Stavanger.
When they were hunting for locations, 'the national building' had a certain allure. "It's good to do different things," he said. "It's very important to have beautiful venues, both for the players and the audience. It's nice to do something special when we come to Oslo (is what we thought). Good to have it here when we are setting the standard in so many ways."
It's certainly a grander and a bolder vision. In 2025 for example, the playing hall was in the basement of a bank. In 2026, the players, if they look beyond the curtains, can see the Opera and the waterfront.
By logic, an actual chess tournament in a library makes a lot of sense. Silence is the main currency so you don't need ushers going around asking the public to shush every now and then. But It's also a gamble because there are no sound proof rooms in place and ambient noises can make its presence felt.
On the evidence of the opening day of the competition, though, this gamble has paid off.
