The fierce competition between technology and financial geniuses will culminate this weekend in the finals of a corporate chess tournament featuring teams from some of the world's largest companies.
The World Chess Federation (Fédération Internationale des Échecs, or FIDE) is hosting a final in New York this weekend that will pit the best players from Google, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs against nine other companies from the U.S. and abroad to be crowned “the smartest company in the world.”
The FIDE World Corporate Chess Championship will begin on June 15 and 16 with four players from each team and one reserve competing in a 10-round group stage, with the top four teams advancing to the semi-finals. The final two teams will play for the title on June 17.
The tournament aims to highlight how the strategic thinking required in chess intersects with decision-making in the corporate world, FIDE spokesman Milan Dinic said. luck.
“Chess and business have many common concepts, including strategy, risk management, and resource management,” Dinnick said in an email. “The goal of this championship is to explore and deepen the connections between chess and the business world.”
For Igor Schneider, vice president of Deutsche Bank's financial institutions group and a FIDE Master for the bank's chess team, the connections are clear.
“Deutsche Bank has always been supportive of us taking part in these types of tournaments because they understand the strategic nature of the game,” Schneider said. luck “Chess fosters more strategic thinking and collaboration across the organization, which is highly valued by Deutsche Bank and our clients,” he said in an email.
While many new players have taken up chess during the pandemic following the release of Netflix's “The Queen's Gambit,” Schneider said chess has always played a special role in his life. He represented the United States in tournaments and traveled the world growing up, and he said he sees chess as the “great equalizer” that brings people together from different backgrounds. But this weekend, Deutsche Bank's team of former competitive players — including three chess virtuosos and a former U.S. women's chess champion — has their eyes on the prize money.
“I'm really excited to be representing Deutsche Bank in this tournament. It would be really special to become world champion,” he said.
Kola Adeyemi, a Google Team Captain, leads product strategy and operations for Google Workspace. Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, he learned to play chess from his uncle at age 8. He's a competitive player rated around 2000 by international FIDE standards (according to the United States Chess Federation, his rating under classical time limits is 2336, the equivalent of a National Master), but enjoys playing against fierce local players at Bryant Park in New York City.
According to Adeyimi, Google has an active chess community, with about 2,500 people on its mailing list. Googlers from around the world frequently compete against each other in online tournaments, he said. Several employees hold Grandmaster (GM) and International Master (IM) titles and are among the best players in the world by FIDE standards, Adeyimi added.
Adeyemi said Google team members will give it their all in this weekend's tournament, but the question of whether tech or finance is smarter is by no means a top priority.
“People aren't playing this for prize money or anything like that, they're just playing it because they love the game,” he said. luck.
