Checkmate at 90° South: FIDE chess tournament heads to Antarctica
Six chess players representing all six inhabited continents will travel to Antarctica in January 2027 for what organizers call the most geographically extreme chess tournament ever played.
The FIDE-rated Polar Chess Expedition will begin with rapid chess rounds on the Antarctic ice before culminating at the Geographic South Pole - 90° South.
Every game will be broadcast live, and organizers hope to set a world record for the southernmost chess tournament ever played.
The idea began two years ago after Myanmar's Aung Kyaw Moe came across an interview with English grandmaster Nigel Short, who said he had won chess tournaments on every continent except Antarctica.
“I’ve won tournaments on six continents. Antarctica is the one still missing,” Short said.
Moe and Short then approached chess federations around the world and turned the idea into an official FIDE-rated tournament.
The six-player field will include competitors from Myanmar, Chile, South Africa, England, Papua New Guinea and Saint Lucia, representing Asia, South America, Africa, Europe, Oceania and North America.
The tournament will be led by Short, who challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess Championship in 1993 and now serves as FIDE's Director for Chess Development.
“Chess has taken me to some strange places over the years,” Papua New Guinea's Shaun Press said. “This might be the first one where the biggest opponent isn’t across the board; it’s the weather.”