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FIDE Chess.com Isle Of Man: Round 1 Pairings
Magnus Carlsen with organizer Alan Ormsby at the opening. Photo: John Saunders.

FIDE Chess.com Isle Of Man: Round 1 Pairings

PeterDoggers
| 48 | Chess Event Coverage

The inaugural FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss was officially opened on Wednesday at the Comis Hotel near the Isle of Man capital, Douglas. The pairings for the first round are out.

You can follow the games here as part of our live portal Chess.com/events. There's daily coverage by GM Daniel King and IM Anna Rudolf, joined by WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni for interviews, on Twitch.tv/chess.

The show starts daily at 14:50 local time, which is 15:50 (noon) CEST, 9:50 a.m. Eastern and 6:50 a.m. Pacific.

2019 FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss commentary


A total of 154 top players, from 42 countries, will take part in the tournament, which will produce one of the qualifiers for next year's Candidates' Tournament. Most of the participants attended both the players' meeting and the opening ceremony.

In his speech, the tournament director Alan Ormsby pointed out that the traditional Isle of Man tournament was "a natural fit" for the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss, and that it made sense for it to become part of the official world championship cycle.

Ormsby emphasized the importance of a great number of wildcards given to the organizers, as they helped increase the number of women and juniors at the event. He also thanked the Scheinberg family for its continuous support of the event over the years.

In his address at the opening ceremony, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich stated the importance of this tournament for the global chess community and complimented the organizers, who have now partnered with FIDE to make this event a part of the official world championship cycle.

“We are taking our risks with this first tournament based on the Swiss system and that will identify the player who will play in the Candidates’ Tournament. We truly believe that the combination of events played according to different systems provides a framework for identifying those who will challenge the world champion. It is very unusual that the world champion and the runner-up are participating in the qualifying event, but it makes this event even more interesting,” Dvorkovich said.

Arkady Dvorkovich FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss opening ceremony
FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich speaking at the opening ceremony. Photo: John Saunders.

The FIDE president emphasized the importance of giving a chance to more women players, arguing that this “shows a truly open nature of our approach.” He also thanked the Isle of Man government for its involvement, adding that the whole chess community will be focused on this important event.

The tournament runs October 10-21 in the Comis Hotel & Golf Resort in Isle of Man. Games start each day at 3 p.m. local time, which is 16:00 CEST, 10 a.m. Eastern and 7 a.m. Pacific.

A full preview with all details on the tournament can be found here.

With an average rating of 2637 and 21 players rated above 2700, this tournament can be regarded as the strongest Swiss ever held. Among the players competing for the first prize of $70,000 are both World Champion Magnus Carlsen and world number-two Fabiano Caruana. The total prize fund is $433,000.

Top pairings for round one:

Bo. No. Fed Name Rtg vs Result Name Rtg No.
1 1 Carlsen Magnus 2876 - Kuzubov Yuriy 2636 78
2 79 Zhang Zhong 2636 - Caruana Fabiano 2812 2
3 3 So Wesley 2767 - Moiseenko Alexander 2635 80
4 81 Najer Evgeniy 2635 - Anand Viswanathan 2765 4
5 5 Yu Yangyi 2763 - Mareco Sandro 2634 82
6 83 Abasov Nijat 2632 - Karjakin Sergey 2760 6
7 7 Grischuk Alexander 2759 - Jumabayev Rinat 2630 84
8 85 Tari Aryan 2630 - Aronian Levon 2758 8
9 9 Harikrishna Pentala 2748 - Alekseev Evgeny 2629 86
10 87 Bachmann Axel 2629 - Wojtaszek Radoslaw 2748 10
11 11 Artemiev Vladislav 2746 - Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo 2629 88
12 89 Parligras Mircea-Emilian 2629 - Nakamura Hikaru 2745 12
13 13 Vitiugov Nikita 2732 - Volokitin Andrei 2627 90
14 91 Akobian Varuzhan 2625 - Svidler Peter 2729 14
15 15 Wang Hao 2726 - Esipenko Andrey 2624 92
16 93 Huschenbeth Niclas 2624 - Bu Xiangzhi 2721 16
17 17 Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 2718 - Sethuraman S.P. 2624 94
18 95 Rakhmanov Aleksandr 2621 - Matlakov Maxim 2716 18
19 19 Le Quang Liem 2708 - Van Foreest Jorden 2621 96
20 97 Vocaturo Daniele 2620 - Xiong Jeffery 2708 20

(Full pairings here.)


Previous report:

FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss Starts Thursday

PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

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