Press release by the Play Magnus Group
The field for the Aimchess US Rapid is topped by world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, who skipped a tour event for the first time on his way to third place in the FIDE World Cup. He’s joined by half the Top 10; the likes of Alireza Firouzja and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave from outside the Top 10; and World Cup winner Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
There are tour debuts for top streamers Daniel Naroditsky (USA) and Eric Hansen (Canada), while 18-year-old US prodigy Awonder Liang gets a chance as the runner-up in the recent Kramnik Challenge, since Vincent Keymer is playing the European Championship instead. Vincent will get a chance next season.
The action kicks off at 11:00 ET (17:00 CEST, 20:30 IST) on Saturday, August 28, and runs non-stop until September 5.
The games will once again all be played online on the chess24 Playzone with the same 16-player prelims followed by 8-player knockout format of the previous events on the tour.
As well as the $100,000 prize fund, this is the last regular tour event before the Finals, that are slated to take place from September 25 to October 4.
Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov and Anish Giri qualified immediately for the Finals when they won Tour Majors. Two spots in the 10-player Finals will be given to wildcards, while five more players qualify by points scored. Wesley So, Levon Aronian and Ian Nepomniachtchi are also in as they can no longer be caught.
That’s where it gets interesting, however, with the remaining two points-based spots still up for grabs. Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are currently in those spots, and while it might seem that Hikaru is safe, that’s not quite the case. If Artemiev wins the event and MVL finishes runner-up (and at least 7th in the prelims) Nakamura would be out. Here are the points on offer.
Of course MVL’s situation is much more perilous, as if he doesn’t qualify for the knockout, he can be caught by Artemiev, Liem Quang Le, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and even Alireza Firouzja, who is currently 15th with 15 tour points, but could climb to 65 with a perfect result in the Aimchess US Rapid.
Of course, the presence of Magnus Carlsen is one factor that’s going to make anyone else scoring a perfect 50 points tricky, while there’s also intrigue at the very top.
