Stage set in Tashkent

The second stage of the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix is taking place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The tournament will run from October 20th to November 3rd, 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.

Tashkent Grand Prix

Despite the fact that the Grand Prix in Baku finished not even a week ago, the top players in the world are ready to go at it again. Caruana and Gelfand come in as the winners of the previous event and they currently lead the Grand Prix standings, but they are definitely many people following them closely:

Out of the people that tied for third place in Baku, two of them will be making an appearance in Tashkent. Nakamura and Karjakin are the closest suitors to the leaders, while Tomashevsky, Svidler and Grischuk are skipping Tashkent to play in the other two events.

Tashkent is Uzbekistan's capital and by far the most urban city in that country. In 2007, Tashkent was named the cultural capital of the Islamic world as the city is home to numerous historic mosques and Islamic locations of interest. Tashkent also houses the earliest written Qur'an which has been in Tashkent since 1924.

Uzbekistan boasts several grandmasters, though not many of them are active. Their representative in the Grand Prix is Kasimdzhanov, though he currently resides in Hamburg, Germany. Despite his performance in Baku, Kasimdzhanov showed that he is still a very dangerous opponent to anyone as he demolished his competition in the Olympiad. A painful last round wipe-out by the Indian team meant that Uzbekistan's final standings in that tournament was not as high as it should have been; had Uzbekistan cleaned up the Indians instead of what happened they had a great shot at a medal.

Tashkent is no stranger to hosting Grand Prix as it had already hosted one for the women in the previous cycle.

Opening Ceremony

The second stage of FIDE Grand Prix series 2014-2015 was officially opened on Monday evening at the Gallery of Fine Arts in Tashkent. The tournament's opening ceremony was attended by chess officials, sponsors, national and international media. 

What would a GP opening be without local dancers?

The opening ceremony started with speeches. The Chairman of the Chess Federation of Uzbekistan Alisher Saidabbasovich Sultanov (Above) took the floor to welcome all participants and guests.

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (Above) expressed his gratitude to the government of the country for their huge support and decisive contribution into development of chess.

Giri drew pairing number one

The Chief Arbiter of the tournament IA Husan Turdialiev conducted the ceremony of drawing of lots. Each participant was proposed to choose one of the 12 bottles of cognac with the number inside of each. By coincidence the name of the cognac “Filatov” turned to be same as the name of the President of Russian Chess Federation Andrey Filatov.

The first symbolic moves were made by Rustam Kasimdzhanov, former FIDE World Champion,
and FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

The action starts tomorrow as things are heating up in the race for the Candidate's tournament.

Photos and information taken from the official website

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.