2019 FIDE Grand Prix Series starts in Moscow on May 17

The race for the 2020 World Chess Championship begins May 17 in Moscow with the first tournament in the FIDE World Chess Grand Prix. The four-tournament series, which will unfold throughout the year, features 22 of the world's top players fighting for two spots in next year's Candidates Tournament to select a challenger for the World Championship title. The players are also be competing for a total of €800,000 in prizes, with €130,000 in each Grand Prix and additional €280,000 for performance in the whole Series.

The Moscow Grand Prix will be held in the Central Chess Player's House, an historic building in the center of Moscow (Gogolevsky Boulevard, 14), from May 17 to 30.

Making the series even more exciting, each tournament will have a knock-out format, starting with 16 players. To win a Grand Prix, a player will have to survive four rounds. Each round will consist of two classical (or slow) games, followed by faster tie-breaker games if necessary.

The participants in the Moscow Grand Prix (with most recent ratings that are used in world rankings) are:


Anish Giri (2787, Netherlands)
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2781, Azerbaijan)
Ian Nepomniachtchi (2773, Russia)
Alexander Grischuk (2772, Russia)
Levon Aronian (2762, Armenia)
Hikaru Nakamura (2761, USA)
Teimour Radjabov (2759, Azerbaijan)
Wesley So (2754, USA)
Sergey Karjakin (2752, Russia)
Peter Svidler (2739, Russia)
Wei Yi (2736, China)
Nikita Vitiugov (2734, Russia)
Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2728, Poland)
Radoslaw Wojtaszek (2724, Poland)
Dmitry Jakovenko (2708, Russia)
Daniil Dubov (2690, Russia)


Schedule:

May 17-18 – Round 1 (May 19 – Tie-break)
May 20-21 – Round 2 (May 22 - Tie-break)
May 23-24 – Semi-final (May 25 – Tie-break)
May 27-28 – Final (May 29 – Tie-break)

May 26 is a rest day.

The games start at 3:00 pm. The games will be broadcast live at worldchess.com.

There will be a pre-start press conference on May 16 at the Central Chess Player's House, featuring Arkady Dvorkovich, the president of the World Chess Federation, or FIDE; Ilya Merenzon, chief executive of World Chess, the organizer of the Grand Prix; Andrey Guryev, head of PhosAgro, one of the principal corporate sponsors, and vice president of the Russian Chess Federation, and Mikhail Vasin, head of corporate communications RussiaStan & META of Kaspersky Lab; and participants in the tournament.

Media registration for the press conference starts at 14:00 pm, while the press conference begins at 15:00 pm.

Leading partners supporting the FIDE World Chess Grand Prix Series 2019 include:

PhosAgro,a leading chemical company as the Official Strategic Partner

Kaspersky Lab, as Official Cybersecurity Partner

For further questions, please contact: media@worldchess.com.

Media kits: https://mediakit2018.worldchess.com

Official website: https://worldchess.com/news/1349