The first of the three elite tournaments which are part of the recently born “Grand Chess Tour” takes off on June the 15th, with a Blitz event that precedes the classic tournament.
In Norway, four players with a FIDE rating over 2800 will make the tournament one of the strongest ever, rating-wise.
The Classical Tournament starts June the 16th, at 4PM EDT (New York) - 16:00 Berlin - 15:00 London - 17:00 Moscow - 19:30 New Delhi
The tournament is a 9 Rounds Round Robin; Rest day on June the 20th;
Time Control is: Start with 120 minutes - Add 60 minutes after move 40 - Add 15 minutes +30 sec. increment after move 60
Participants: Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 2876); Fabiano Caruana (ITA, 2805); Viswanathan Anand (IND, 2804); Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2802); Veselin Topalov (BUL, 2798); Alexander Grischuk (RUS, 2781); Levon Aronian (ARM, 2780); Anish Giri (NED, 2773); Maxim Vachier-Lagrave (FRA, 2723); John Ludvig Hammer (NOR, 2677).
The Grand Chess Tour was created with just one goal in mind: Demonstrating the highest level of organization for the world’s best players,” said Tony Rich, Executive Director of the CCSCSL.
There is $1,000,050,000 at stake, with each of the three events awarding individual prize funds of $300,000. Based on their results, the competitors will also tally points toward a tour prize fund of $150,000, with the Grand Chess Tour champion receiving an additional $75,000.
Eight of the top ten players who were invited accepted to participate in all the three events.
ICC will cover the event with LIVE commentary, Game Of the Day video for each round and the TRIVIA contests.