FIDE Grand-Prix 2014-2015

[Wayne Komer]

FIDE Grand-Prix 2014-2015 Announcement

Wednesday, 20 August 2014

FIDE announces the full details of the Grand-Prix 2014-2015, from which the first two (2) winners will qualify to the Candidates Tournament of the World Chess Championship Cycle 2014-2016. The schedule of the four events is the following:

a.) 1 - 15 October 2014: Baku, Azerbaijan
b.) 20 October - 3 November 2014: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
c.) 14 - 28 February 2015: Tehran, Iran
d.) 13 - 27 May 2015: Moscow, Russia

In total 16 players will participate, 11 qualifiers as per regulations (listed below) plus 4 nominees from the organisers (to be announced) plus 1 nominee of the FIDE President (to be announced).

The 11 original qualifiers who have to confirm their participation by 27 August 2014 are:

01. Carlsen, Magnus (World Champion)
02. Anand, Wiswanathan (World Ch. match 2013)
03. Kramnik, Vladimir (World Cup winner 2013)
04. Andreikin, Dmitry (World Cup runner-up 2013)
05. Tomashevsky, Evgeny (World Cup semi-finalist 2013)
06. Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime (World Cup semi-finalist 2013)
07. Aronian, Levon (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
08. Caruana, Fabiano (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
09. Grischuk, Alexander (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
10. Nakamura, Hikaru (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
11. Topalov, Veselin (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)

The first reserves for any replacement needed are:

1. Karjakin, Sergey (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
2. Gelfand, Boris (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
3. Mamedyarov, S (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014).

Each player will play in 3 tournaments and all his results will be taken into account for the overall final standings of the Grand-Prix.

The full regulations of the Grand-Prix 2014-2015 can be downloaded from the FIDE website here:

http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.ht...1&view=article

[Wayne Komer]

Re: FIDE Grand-Prix 2014-2015

FIDE Grand Prix 2014-5

From chess24.com:

This time round the (site) focus is far from Western Europe, with Tehran in particular a potential stumbling block for some players. Although Iran’s foreign relations have improved of late, some countries still issue cautions about travelling there. For instance, the US Department of State “warns U.S. citizens to carefully consider the risks of travel to Iran”, while the UK advises “against all but essential travel” to most of Iran.

Israel's Boris Gelfand is one player we can also safely assume would not make the trip.

The players are allowed to give cities in order of preference, although only four can sit out each event and FIDE offers no guarantees that preferences can be acted upon.

We're likely to have a clearer picture of how the Grand Prix will look soon, since the deadline for players to sign their contracts is the 27th August.