World Chess Grand Prix Cycle 2012/2013 Announced

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012


Hi everyone,

FIDE and AGON have announced the full details of the new Chess Grand Prix cycle 2012/2013. Each player will be assigned to play in four of the six cities and his best three results will be accumulated for his overall ranking at the end of the series. The top two overall placed in the Grand Prix will qualify for the Candidates event in 2014. 

From the Regulations, the 18 players qualifying to participate in the series are as follows :

Art. 3.1 Current World Champion and Challenger from 2012 World Championship match
Viswanathan Anand (IND)
Boris Gelfand (ISR)

3.2 World Cup
Peter Svidler (RUS)
Alexander Grischuk (RUS)
Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR)
Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR)

3.3 FIDE President Nominees. The FIDE President may nominate one player who must be rated at least 2700 as per the January 2012 rating list.

3.4 Organiser Nominees. Six players may be nominated by AGON and must be rated not less than 2700 in the January 2012 rating list or have been a former World Chess Champion.

3.5 Rating (five players plus reserves as may be required)

Name Title Country Jan-12 Jul-11 Jan+Jul Avg
- Carlsen, Magnus GM NOR 2835 2821 2828.0
- Aronian, Levon GM ARM 2805 2805 2805.0
- Kramnik, Vladimir GM RUS 2801 2781 2791.0
- Karjakin, Sergey GM RUS 2769 2788 2778.5
- Topalov, Veselin GM BUL 2770 2768 2769.0
- Nakamura, Hikaru GM USA 2759 2770 2764.5 1st Reserve
- Gashimov, Vugar GM AZE 2761 2760 2760.5 2nd Reserve
- Radjabov, Teimour GM AZE 2773 2744 2758.5 3rd Reserve
- Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar GM AZE 2747 2765 2756.0 4th Reserve
- Kamsky, Gata GM USA 2732 2741 2736.5 5th Reserve
- Jakovenko, Dmitry GM RUS 2729 2736 2732.5
- Vitiugov, Nikita GM RUS 2726 2733 2729.5
- Morozevich, Alexander GM RUS 2763 2694 2728.5
- Wang, Hao GM CHN 2733 2718 2725.5
- Dominguez Perez, Leinier GM CUB 2730 2719 2724.5
- Tomashevsky, Evgeny GM RUS 2740 2707 2723.5
- Caruana, Fabiano GM ITA 2736 2711 2723.5
- Nepomniachtchi, Ian GM RUS 2735 2711 2723.0
- Almasi, Zoltan GM HUN 2717 2726 2721.5
- Adams, Michael GM ENG 2724 2715 2719.5

3.6 Replacements. Any replacement for the initial selection, will be selected on the basis of Article 3.5 which takes into account the average rating and greater number of games, if of equal rating.

All the players qualified above (including the five reserves) must download and sign the Players Agreement and return it by email to the Fide office in Athens, Greece. The six cities and dates for the Grand Prix series are:

2012
Grand Prix Chelyabinsk September 19 – October 3
Grand Prix Tashkent November 21 – December 4

2013
Grand Prix Lisbon April 10 – April 24
Grand Prix Madrid May 22 – June 4
Grand Prix Berlin July 3 – July 17
Grand Prix Paris September 18 – October 2

Players must also submit, along with their signed agreement, the six cities ranked in order or preference of participation. FIDE and AGON will consider the players’ requests and allocate the players to the various tournaments taking into consideration the players’ preferences, average rating and other parameters.

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