$100,000 Speed Chess Championship Expands With Women's, Junior Events
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Chess.com expands $100,000 Speed Chess Championship series with women's, junior events.
Palo Alto, Calif., March 8, 2019—Chess.com will expand its 2019 Speed Chess Championship online tournament series to include women's, junior and open qualifier events, and upping the prize pool to $100,000, the largest in online chess. The tournament series will run from May to October and be broadcast live on Twitch.tv/Chess.
The Speed Chess Championship has been the flagship of online chess tournaments for the past two years. The world chess champion Magnus Carlsen won the event in 2017, and the four-time U.S. chess champion Hikaru Nakamura won in 2018.
The Speed Chess Championship will expand into a full tournament series, including a women's championship, an under-21 junior championship, and two qualifiers. With a $50,000 Speed Chess Championship main event, the tournament series offers a total prize pool of $100,000.
The winners of the women's, junior and qualifier tournaments will also earn berths in the main Speed Chess Championship, which will culminate in a thrilling finals match on October 5-6.
Each Speed Chess Championship will be a knockout tournament with online matches between some of the best chess players in the world. Nakamura, the 2018 champion, has confirmed he will defend his title in the main Speed Chess bracket. Nakamura will face 15 challengers, including 11 more invited grandmasters, plus the four winners of the women's, junior and qualifier events.
The women's event will begin in May and is expected to conclude in July, as eight of the best female chess players face off in seven head-to-head matches. The prize pool for the Women's Speed Chess Championship is $20,000. The winner will also receive a spot in the main Speed Chess Championship.
Chess.com also announced a junior Speed Chess Championship for chess players under the age of 21. Sixteen of the world's top young chess masters will battle in 15 head-to-head matches, with the winner moving on to the main Speed Chess bracket. The Junior Speed Chess Championship prize pool is $20,000.
The 2019 Speed Chess Championship will also provide a path to victory for any chess master on the planet who can win one of two open qualifier tournaments this summer. The qualifiers themselves will have a $10,000 total prize pool.
The entire tournament series will be broadcast live on Twitch.tv/Chess, with better-than-ever production values and an all-star cast of commentators. GM Robert Hess and IM Daniel Rensch will return to commentate on the main Speed Chess Championship. IM Sopiko Guramishvili and IM Anna Rudolf will be the lead commentators for the Women's Speed Chess Championship.
Commentators for the rest of the tournament series and some special guests will be announced in the coming weeks. The full fields for the tournaments will also be released at SpeedChessChampionship.com when they are available.
For more information, including the upcoming schedule, prizes, players, graphics and match details, please visit SpeedChessChampionship.com.
Contact:
Nick Barton
Director of eSports, Chess.com
email: esports@chess.com
phone: (800) 318-2827
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