Start of the Grand Chess Tour 2019

by ChessBase
5/8/2019 – Starting on Wednesday, the first stop of the Grand Chess Tour 2019 is the Ivory Coast. It's the first time the GCT has held an event in Africa. Ten top GMs compete in the Pullman Abidjan Hotel in Abidjan, the country's largest city, including World Champion Magnus Carlsen in rapid and blitz chess for a prize fund of USD $150,000. Live commentary will be available by GM Yannick Pelletier, IM Tania Sachdev, GM Alejandro Ramirez & GM Maurice Ashley.

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A new season

From May 8th to 12th, ten participants play 9 rounds of rapid chess and 18 rounds of blitz in the "Côte d'Ivoire Rapid & Blitz 2019", one of four new tournaments to be added to the Grand Chess Tour series in 2019. The tournament was made possible by a partnership between Vivendi SA, Canal+ Group and the Pullman Abidjan Hotel. The total prize fund is USD $150,000.

The economic capital of Ivory Coast, Abidjan, is the first stop of the new series and also the first tournament on the African continent in which a reigning World Chess Champion is participating.

2019 Grand Chess Tour participants

Ratings as of May 8th, 2019

# FED Name URS* FIDE Elo Born
1   Carlsen, Magnus 2867 (1) 2861 (1) 1990
2   Nakamura, Hikaru 2805 (2) 2761 (11) 1987
3   Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 2792 (3) 2780 (6) 1990
4   Caruana, Fabiano 2791 (4) 2816 (2) 1992
5   Ding, Liren 2786 (5) 2805 (3) 1992
6   Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 2777 (6) 2781 (5) 1985
7   Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2776 (7) 2773 (8) 1990
8   Aronian, Levon 2776 (8) 2762 (10) 1982
9   Karjakin, Sergey 2773 (9) 2752 (16) 1990
10   So, Wesley 2772 (10) 2754 (13) 1993
11   Giri, Anish 2766 (13) 2787 (4) 1994
12   Anand, Viswanathan 2759 (15) 2774 (7) 1969

*URS stands for Universal Rating System, developed and used by the Grand Chess Tour

The players of the first leg of the GCT 2019 — Wei, Amin and Topalov are the wild cards

Promotional video introducing the players | Grand Chess Tour

Abidjan is not the capital of Ivory Coast, but it is the largest city and economic hub

Ashley

On the even of the tournament, Maurice Ashley and the GCT video crew visited a local chess school with Dr Essoh Essis

Schedule

From May 8th-10th, three rapid chess games will be played per day, starting at 17:00 local time (UTC) each day — 19:00, 20:30 and 22:00 (CEST) or 1PM / 2:30PM / 4PM EDT.

On May 11th and 12th, a total of 18 blitz games will be played. On both days, the rounds start at 14:00 local time (UTC), with each round starting 30 minutes after the prior round until 18:00. Should a tie-break be necessary, it starts on May 12th at 18:30 UTC.

All rounds will feature live commentary by GM Yannick Pelletier, IM Tania Sachdev, GM Alejandro Ramirez & GM Maurice Ashley.

Rapid

Time (GMT)

May 8

Time (GMT)

May 9

Time (GMT)

May 10

17:00

Round 1

17:00

Round 4

17:00

Round 7

18:30

Round 2

18:30

Round 5

18:30

Round 8 

20:00

Round 3

20:00

Round 6

20:00

Round 9

Blitz

Time (GMT)

May 11

Time (GMT)

May 12

14:00

Round 1

14:00

Round 10

14:30

Round 2

14:30

Round 11

15:00

Round 3

15:00

Round 12

15:30

Round 4

15:30

Round 13

16:00

Round 5

16:00

Round 14

16:30

Round 6

16:30

Round 15

17:00

Round 7

17:00

Round 16

17:30

Round 8

17:30

Round 17

18:00

Round 9

18:00

Round 18

 

 

18:30

Playoffs / Prizegiving


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