Baku Closing

The first stage of the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix is taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan. The tournament will run from October 1st to October 15, 2014. Some of the strongest players in the world will compete in a Round Robin event. The winner and runner-up of the Grand Prix series will earn their spot at the 2016 Candidate's Tournament.

Closing Ceremony

The relative small closing ceremony took place in the Mugham Club of Azerbaijan. The restaurant specializes in traditional Azerbaijani cuisine, and many consider it to be the best in the entire country in this regard!

As in many final dinners, the tables were more or less organized depending on the guest's 'role' in the tournament

The player's table, which usually includes wives, girlfriends and/or coaches

Also important is the dignitaries table

Traditional dances to accompany traditional food

The group of players with the winners in the middle...

Gelfand and Caruana split the big check

More dances to continue the night

Finally one of the commentators, Emil Sutovsky, entertained the crowd with his singing!
You can watch a small clip of this in Sutovsky's Facebook Profile.

Finally a beautiful shot of Baku by Maria Emelianova

Grand Prix Standings

Gelfand and Caruana didn't only split the first and second money prize of 20,000 and 15,000 euros, but also the 170 and 140 Grand Prix points for the winner and runner-up. This puts them currently 73 points ahead of a group of people that tied for third: Karjakin, Grischuk, Svidler and Tomashevsky.

The next Grand Prix will be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan... the players only have five days to prepare for it! The tournament is scheduled to start on the 20th of this month and we will be providing daily reports of the tournament. Grischuk, Svidler, Tomashevsky and Dominguez will be missing this event and joining the players in their behalf will be Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jakovenko, Jobava and Giri.

The two leaders of the Grand Prix will be playing in the same tournaments, and both are missing the third in the series - therefore nothing will be set in stone after Tblisi (which is reported to replace Tehran as the third Grand Prix host).

Top 20 Live Ratings

1		Carlsen		2863.0	0.0
2		Caruana		2838.8	−5.2
3		Topalov		2800.0	0.0
4	1	Aronian		2797.4	+4.4
5	1	Grischuk		2794.6	−2.4
6		Anand		2791.8	+6.8
7		Giri		2774.7	+6.7
8		Karjakin		2769.6	+2.6
9		Nakamura		2767.0	+3.0
10	4	So		2762.0	+7.0
11		Kramnik		2760.0	0.0
12	4	Gelfand		2758.5	+10.5
13	3	Mamedyarov		2757.0	−7.0
14	1	Vachier-Lagr		2750.6	−6.4
15	2	Jakovenko		2747.0	0.0
16	4	Adams		2744.8	−13.2
17	1	Wojtaszek		2742.0	0.0
18	2	Svidler		2740.2	+8.2
19		Vitiugov		2738.0	0.0
20	1	Leko		2731.0	0.0

The biggest change in the top 20 must be Dominguez exclusion from it. With the Cubans massive rating drop from the Grand Prix he is now in place 24, down from 15. Radjabov inches closer to this list and sits in place 21, but has not reached Leko's rating yet (he is missing one point).

Gelfand's solid gain of 10.5 points (effectively 11) puts him in the 12th place. Caruana lost some rating despite winning the tournament, but that doesn't put his number two position in the world in any danger.

The new guy in the top-10 is Wesley So who gained a nice seven points in the Las Vegas Millionaire Chess Tournament and surpassed Kramnik; this was aided by Mamedyarov's bad performance and the Azerbaijani drops to place 13.

Replay All Games

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Final Standings

Schedule

Links Official tournament site All Games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.