The third stage of the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix took place in Tbilisi, Georgia. The tournament ran from February 14th to February 28, 2014. Some of the strongest players in the world competed 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.

Grand Prix Standings

The Tbilisi Grand Prix is over, and with that is time to take a look at what that means for the upcoming World Championship. The Grand Prix is an important stepping stone to participating in the World Championship as the top two qualify for the 2016 Candidates tournament, the winner of this event will challenge Magnus Carlsen for the highest title in chess.

The Candidates so far has only one person qualified to it: Viswanathan Anand as the player who lost the 2014 World Championship Match.

The next qualifiers in priority list will be the top two players from the FIDE World Cup 2015 to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan later this year. After this, in priority, are the top two finishers from the Grand Prix series, followed by two players by rating (average from January 1st 2015 to December 1st 2015) who have participated in either the World Cup or the Grand Prix series. As a side note this makes it unlikely that Aronian will be invited to the Candidates even if he qualifies by rating since he did not play the Grand Prix and is improbable that he will play the World Cup - that is unless the Candidates is held in Armenia as the organizers have a wildcard.

With that said, let us look at the standings in the GP:

After the Tbilisi GP we can see that Tomashevsky and Mamedyarov are currently leading the charge, but things are not so simple. Players only participate in three Grand Prix tournaments, and every single tournament counts. Because of this, for example, Mamedyarov has no chance at all to qualify. Caruana only has to show up to Khanty-Mansiysk to earn 10 points (the minimum possible) and he will with that surpass the Azeri.

Under the same premise Radjabov, Andreikin and Kasimzdhanov are out of the race. Most of the people that participate in Khanty have some off-chance of qualifying, but it seems unlikely that the two spots will not go to two of Tomashevsky, Caruana and Nakamura - barring some sort of disastrous performance by two of these players in Russia. Jakovenko and Gelfand could also wiggle their way in, but they are almost forced to win or at least get clear second in the event.

As many have pointed out it looks likely that Caruana and/or Nakamura get invitations by rating, if they keep up their form at least, but the GP spot takes precedence. This means that if they qualify from the GP and by rating, the spot will be given to the next player in line by rating, not the next one in the GP standings.

The tournament changed the rating position of many players, but since they have already been counted for the March list, we will refer you to our report of the rating list that will be coming shortly.

Closing Ceremony

Ivan Sokolov, Keti Tsatsalashvili and Tornike Sanikidze wave good bye to the tournament

The closing ceremony was a relatively small but cozy affair

Live music is always a must

Three down and one to go, the GP series is rather short compared to the last one, which had six events

All the players received a little plaque for their participation... as well as local wine!

Mahir Mammadov, General Director of Socar Energy Georgia, the tournament sponsor, presented the winner Evgeny Tomashevsky with the check of 20,000 EUR.

Songs from a local choir

ECU President Zurab Azmaiparashvili giving his speech

Jobava, Grischuk and Andreikin in the closing

Wrapping up with a formal dinner...

and some words from the winner himself!

Khanty-Mansiysk is scheduled for the 13th to the 27th of May. In three months we will know two more names of the 2016 Candidates tournament player list!

Final Standings

Replay All Games

Photos from the official website by Maria Emelianova

Schedule

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.