The former world title challenger, 61, will take on representatives from five other continents in a tournament rated by the global chess body Fide.
Nigel Short, the 1993 world title challenger, will head to the Antarctic for his next tournament as the 61-year-old, formerly of Bolton but resident for many decades in Greece, attempts to become the first chess player to win tournaments on seven continents.
Short is now Fide’s director for chess development.
Short was a candidate for the England team at the current Samarkand Olympiad despite still ranking No 6, because the No 2 David Howell is now prioritising his successful career as a media commentator.
Short lost around 100 points in 2020, but in the six years since then his rating has remained stable at close to 2600 despite his diminished activity. On the current September Fide list he is at 2594, just four points behind Michael Adams and Luke McShane and 52 ahead of Daniel Fernandez, 30 years Short’s junior, who was preferred for the Olympiad team.
Short’s results include the World over-50 team championship in 2022, when he and Adams, England’s all-time best players, both won individual and gold medals, but he has not been chosen for any England team since then.
Both top board Nikita Vitiugov and Fernandez escaped from bad positions as England eased to a 4-0 win against the minnows from Monaco in round one of the Samarkand Olympiad, which opened on Wednesday. Hans Niemann, making his Olympiad debut for the US, won in a crushing 23 moves, while 12-year-old Faustino Oro, top board for Argentina, scored in 22.