Baku Grand Prix Officially Opens, GP Series Takes Off

Today the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix series takes off with its first event, the Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Top seed Fabiano Caruana has black against Sergey Karjakin in the first round. The winner and runner-up of the overall Grand Prix will qualify for the next Candidates’ Tournament.

On Wednesday, the first tournament of the brand new Grand Prix series was officially opened in the Cultural Event Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. The ceremony included a minute of silence in memory of Vugar Gashimov, who passed away in January of this year. It was Gashimov who finished shared first with Wang Yue and Magnus Carlsen in the very first Grand Prix in 2008, also in Baku.

As pointed out by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in his speech, the Cultural Event Center in Baku has a long chess tradition.

“The building has historical importance as two USSR chess championships (1961 and 1972) were organized here," said Ilyumzhinov. "It was World Champion Boris Spassky who won the championship in 1961 and in 1972 Mikhail Tal became the USSR champion. I hope that one of the participants of the Baku Grand Prix will also become a world champion one day,” said Ilyumzhinov.

The drawing of lots, performed by Chief Arbiter Faik Gasanov, resulted in the following pairing numbers: 1 Dominguez, 2 Tomashevsky, 3 Karjakin, 4 Gelfand, 5 Nakamura, 6 Mamedyarov, 7 Radjabov, 8 Svidler, 9 Andreikin, 10 Caruana, 11 Grischuk and 12 Kasimdzhanov. This leads to the following pairings:

2014 Grand Prix, Baku | Schedule & Pairings

The games start each day at 15:00 local time which is 12:00 in Amsterdam, 11:00 in London, 06:00 in New York, 03:00 in Los Angeles and 20:00 in Sydney. The last round starts two hours earlier. The tournament website will prodive live commentary by GMs Emil Sutovsky and GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko.

Unlike the previous two Grand Prix series, this time only four tournaments will be held. Each of the 16 participants will play in three tournaments out of four. The winner and second placed player in the overall final standings of the Grand Prix will qualify for the Candidates’ Tournament to be held in the last quarter of 2015 or the first half of 2016.

The following table shows the participants and the three tournaments each player will play.

2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix| Participants

Compared to the previous Grand Prix, the prize fund went down from €170,000 to €120,000 for each event.