Chess Grand Prix 2012-2013 participants announced

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

Hi everyone,

FIDE and AGON have announced the 18 participants in the Grand Prix series, which are part of the World Chess Championship cycle. The participants come from the previous World Championship, the World Chess Cup, the highest average ratings of July 2011 and January 2012, one FIDE President nominee, and nominees of AGON.

1. From World Championship Match 2012
GM Boris Gelfand (ISR)

2. From World Cup 2011
GM Peter Svidler (RUS)
GM Alexander Grischuk (RUS)
GM Vasily Ivanchuk (UKR)
GM Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR)

3. By Average Rating (July 2011 + January 2012)GM Teimour Radjabov (AZE)
GM Sergey Karjakin (RUS)
GM Hikaru Nakamura (USA)
GM Veselin Topalov (BUL)
GM Shakriyar Mamedyarov (AZE)
GM Gata Kamsky (USA)

4. FIDE President Nominee
GM Fabiano Caruana (ITA)

5. AGON Nominees
GM Alexander Morozevich (RUS)
GM Wang Hao (CHN)
GM Peter Leko (HUN)
GM Leinier Dominguez Perez (CUB)
GM Anish Giri (NLD)
GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov (UZB)

After the Russian Chess Federation refused to hold the Grand Prix in Chelyabinsk, Agon has scheduled a new event in London. In fact, with the current player’s list and schedule this will be the strongest of all events, with ELO average of over 2750.

Following the approval of the Executive Board in Krakow, Poland in 2011, the FIDE World Championship and Olympiad Commission has agreed on these Regulations which will apply to the Grand Prix Series which forms part of the World Championship Cycle for 2012/2014.

Each Grand Prix tournament shall consist of the 12 players playing a round robin of 11 games. Time control: 120 minutes for the first forty moves, 60 minutes for the next twenty moves and then each player will be allotted 15 minutes after the second time control and an increment of 30 seconds per move will be allowed from move 61 onwards.

The total Grand Prix prize fund for the six tournaments in aggregate is 1.44 million euro. The Prize Fund will be split equally between each tournament. The prize money which will be paid by AGON for each tournament is 240,000 Euros (170,000 Euros for the tournament and 70,000 Euros towards an accumulated prize fund for the overall Series positions).

Andrew Paulson, Director of AGON, said, “We are glad to be bringing a series of World Chess events to the capitals of Europe. In the future we will be progressing continent by continent, bringing great competitions to the world’s capitals in a regular and predictable schedule.

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