WATCH: Ceremonial first moves at Norway Chess made by people sporting traditional Indian mundus

1 day ago 5

ARTICLE AD BOX

The owners of a South Indian restaurant in Norway named Spisoh,. (Michal Walusza/Norway Chess)

The ceremonial first moves in the fifth round of the Norway Chess tournament on Saturday were made with a distinctly Indian flavour: six Indian-origin owners of a South Indian restaurant in Stavanger made the first moves on all the six boards while wearing white mundus. The ceremonial first move is a chess tradition where special guest can make the first move on behalf of the player with white pieces. The player can then take back the move and play their actual first move as per their opening prep, or continue with the same move.

The owners of a South Indian restaurant named Spisoh, which is also a partner of the Norway Chess tournament, made the ceremonial first moves on Saturday. All the four Indian players, D. Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, Koneru Humpy and R. Vaishali have been ordering their meals from the restaurant while in Stavanger for the ongoing Norway Chess tournament.

WATCH: The owners of South Indian restaurant in Norway, Spisoh, making the ceremonial moves during Round 5

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand and player-cum-commentator Tania Sachdev recently visited the restaurant on the rest day for lunch.

“Last time Magnus Carlsen broke FIDE tradition by wearing jeans to a game (at the FIDE world Rapid and Blitz tournament in December 2024). We wanted to extend that and show a fairly unknown India to the West by wearing our traditional dress to the strongest chess tournament in the world. We were not being disrespectful here, we did ask for prior permission to do this,” said Rathish Kunnath, one of the co-owners of the restaurant.

At the halfway stage of Norway Chess, reigning world champion Gukesh finds himself in the last position with 5.5 points in an extremely strong field of six players. Carlsen is the runaway leader with 9.5 points, USA’s Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura in the second and third place, respectively. Arjun sits fourth while China’s Wei Yi is fifth ahead of Gukesh.