St. Louis Rapid & Blitz: Caruana, Firouzja and Pragg start as GCT frontrunners

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
8/11/2024 – The last two events of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour will take place in Saint Louis on 12-29 August. First, the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz will be played on 12-16 August, with the three frontrunners in the race to win the yearly series participating: Fabiano Caruana, Alireza Firouzja and R Praggnanandhaa. Joining them will be four tour 'regulars' and three wildcards: Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura and Leinier Dominguez. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

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Returning to Saint Louis

Since 2021, the Grand Chess Tour has ended with back-to-back events in Saint Louis, Missouri: the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament and the Sinquefield Cup. In this year's series, both tournaments will take place in August, with the Rapid & Blitz event running from Monday to Friday this coming week (i.e. on 12-16 August).

The usual format with 9 rounds of blitz played throughout 3 days and 18 rounds of blitz played on the final 2 days of action will be in place. The ten participants will be fighting for a share of the US$ 175,000 prize fund and for Grand Chess Tour points.

Going into the final two events of the series, Fabiano Caruana - the tour's defending champion - is leading the overall standings, ahead of Alireza Firouzja and R Praggnanandhaa. All three players will participate in both Saint Louis tournaments.

Coincidentally, the two frontrunners in the yearly standings are the players who won the last two editions of the series. Moreover, in both cases, the winner of the series also claimed tournament victories in both Saint Louis events - i.e. Firouzja in 2022 and Caruana in 2023.

Grand Chess Tour 2024

The 2024 Grand Chess Tour standings

Joining them in the rapid & blitz event will be four tour 'regulars' and three wildcards. Notably, this will be the only tournament in this year's series that will include Hikaru Nakamura in the lineup. One of the most popular streamers in the world, Nakamura is also ranked second in the world in classical chess (only behind Magnus Carlsen) and is known for his astounding skills in rapid-play formats.

Regulars D Gukesh and Anish Giri will not play the rapid & blitz tournament but will join their colleagues in the Sinquefield Cup, which remarkably will include world champion Ding Liren as the one wildcard in the field.

Grand Chess Tour 2024

The Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz participants

Navigating the Ruy Lopez Vol.1-3

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Topics: Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz 2024
Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
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