Final GP Begins Tomorrow

The fourth and final stage of the 2014-2015 Grand Prix Series. This tournament is specially important as it will determine the winner and runner up of this year, both of which will automatically qualify for the 2015 Candidates Tournament - the winner of that will challenge Magnus Carlsen to the World Championship Matcch! The tournament is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk, Ugra, Russia from May 13 to May 27.

Grand Prix Standings

The tournament, of course, rather strong - but the most important thing here will be determining who qualifies to the Candidates Tournament. Only the top two earn the automatic spot (though it looks very likely that Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura make it by rating).

The Candidates so far has only one person qualified to it: Anand as the player who lost the 2014 World Championship Match.

After the Tbilisi GP we can see that Tomashevsky and Mamedyarov are currently leading the charge, but things are not so simple. Players only participate in three Grand Prix tournaments, and every single tournament counts. Because of this, for example, Mamedyarov has no chance at all to qualify. Realistically the three favorites to take the two spots are Tomashevsky, who is currently in the lead, Nakamura and Caruana.

It is important for Tomashevsky to qualify via the GP, as if both Nakamura and Caruana grab the spots, Tomashevsky will not get an invite. If Tomashevsky wins one of the spots, it still seems very likely both Caruana and Nakamura will qualify based on rating.

Opening Ceremony

The Jewelry House "Lobortas" has designed and created the Big and Small Cups to award the FIDE Grand Prix series winner. The Cups were presented by Igor Lobortas, Head of the House, at the first Grand Prix of the series in Baku back in October of last year.

Geoffrey Borg, the strongest player from Malta.
Also he is FIDE CEO.

The players are on the right side, but a couple are missing due to travel delays

Dmitry Jakovenko with five as his starting seed

Current leader of the Grand Prix: Evgeny Tomashevsky

Italian-soon-to-be-American Fabiano Caruana

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with number one. Well, a sub had to stand in for this one.

A nice gift for the players

The Ugra Chess Academy, where the battles will go down

The action starts tomorrow and, as usual, you can follow live on www.playchess.com

Tomorrow's pairings are:

Photos from the official website

Schedule

Links Official tournament site The games will be 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.