Chess calendar: May 2019

by ChessBase
5/3/2019 – The month of May is only slightly quieter than April with wide-range of events from the Grand Chess Tour's first African foray to the new FIDE Grand Prix, and the Candidates tournament for the Women's World Championship. You'll find all of these events and more covered in our live games broadcast area Live.ChessBase.com and we'll also be providing News coverage as well. First up is the Russian Team Championship, which is already underway in Sochi

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Malmö, Moscow and more

These are the major events on the chess calendar in May 2019, with links to their official sites. When live games are available, we'll also add these along with any links to our News page coverage of each tournament.

May 1-10: Russian Team Championship

The Russian Team Championship is the Premier League in Russia, but unlike the German League which is play over eight seven months or so, the Russian league is a 10-team single round-robin played in just a week. Now in its 26th edition, teams of eight players face off in six-board matches.

Watch live

Stories on the Russian Team Championship


May 3-9: Tepe Sigeman & Co Tournament

This traditional tournament in the Swedish city of Malmö is in its 25th edition this year. Unlike in 2018, when it was just six players, this year the tournament is expanded to an eight-player round-robin with Harikrishna, Ivan Saric, Nils Grandelius, Gawain Jones, Parham Maghsoodloo, Nihal Sarin, Tiger Hillarp and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu.

Watch live

Stories on TePe Sigeman

Standings

 

May 3-13: Capablanca Memorial

The 54th edition of this traditional tournament in Havana, Cuba, memorialising the third World Chess Champion Jose Raul Capablanca. This year Vassily Ivanchuk, Alexey Dreev and Adhiban Baskaran head the 6-player, double round-robin.

Watch live

Standings

 

May 8-12: Grand Chess Tour: Ivory Coast Rapid & Blitz

The Grand Chess Tour announced in January that it was expanding to Africa, and the first event of the new tour season will be held in Abidjan.

GCT Abidjan

The field in Abidjan

Watch live

Stories on the GCT Abidjan

Final standings (Rapid)

 

Final standings (Blitz)

 

May 11-19 Polish Championships

The Polish Open and Women's Championships take place once again in the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Jan-Krzysztof Duda is the defending open champion.

Watch Live

Standings

 

May 14-18: IMSA World Masters

Part of the International Mind Sports Association Championships, 16 men and 16 women will compete in three days of rapid chess and two days of blitz.

Stories on the IMSA World Masters

Promotional video by IMSA


May 16-30: FIDE Grand Prix (Moscow)

The first of the new FIDE Grand Prix series of knockout tournaments. Organised by World Chess, 16 players battle in Moscow for a €130,000 prize fund plus qualify points for the 2020 Candidates Tournament.

  1. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov | Azerbaijan
  2. Anish Giri | Netherlands
  3. Wesley So | USA
  4. Levon Aronian | Armenia
  5. Alexander Grischuk | Russia
  6. Hikaru Nakamura | USA
  7. Sergey Karjakin | Russia
  8. Ian Nepomniachtchi | Russia
  9. Peter Svidler | Russia
  10. Teimour Radjabov | Azerbaijan
  11. Dmitry Jakovenko | Russia
  12. Radoslaw Wojtaszek | Poland
  13. Wei Yi | China
  14. Jan-Krzysztof Duda | Poland
  15. Nikita Vitiugov | Russia
  16. Daniil Dubov | Russia

Anish Giri

Anish Giri | Photo: World Chess

Watch Live

All stories on the Moscow Grand Prix


May 26 - 27: Lindores Abbey Chess Stars Tournament

A 2-day rapid tournament taking place in a novel location (it could actually be the setting of a novel!) — the Lindores Abbey Distillery in Scotland. Apparently monks once played chess in the there 500 years ago, and now a special whisky is in the works. Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand and Ding Liren are the players we know for now.

May 30-June 17: FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament

One of the priorities of the new administration of FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich was reforming the Women's World Championship cycle. One major result is the Candidates' tournament which will be held in Kazan, Russia. World number one Hou Yifan was qualified but declined to play, leaving these eight players to fight it out in a double round-robin tournament (14 rounds): Anna & Mariya Muzychuk, Kateryna Lagno, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Tan Zhongyi, Nana Dzagnidze and Valentina Gunina and Aleksandra Goryachkina.

Honorary FIDE Vice-President Judit Polgar assisted with the drawing of lots a few days ago 

Links


Reports about chess: tournaments, championships, portraits, interviews, World Championships, product launches and more.

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