Carlsen Heads Grand Chess Tour Line-Up As All Invitees Sign Up
GM Magnus Carlsen tops the field of this year's Grand Chess Tour as all invitees confirmed their participation in the sixth edition of the tour. Today the organizers announced which players will play in which event.
A press release from the Grand Chess Tour states that all invited players have signed up for the tour and that their event allocations have been finalized. The 10 full-tour participants will play in both the Superbet Chess Classic Romania in Bucharest in May and in the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis in September. In addition, they will each participate in two of the three rapid and blitz events as indicated below:
2020 Grand Chess Tour | Allocation Of Players
| Event | Superbet Chess Classic |
Paris GCT R&B |
Croatia R&B |
St. Louis R&B |
Sinquefield Cup |
| Playing Dates | May 5-15 | June 24 - 28 | July 4 - 8 | Aug. 25 - 29 | Aug. 31-Sep. 10 |
| City | Bucharest, Romania |
Paris, France |
Zagreb, Croatia |
St. Louis, USA |
St. Louis, USA |
| 1 | Carlsen | Carlsen | Carlsen | Ding Liren | Carlsen |
| 2 | Ding Liren | Nakamura | Ding Liren | Nakamura | Ding Liren |
| 3 | Caruana | Vachier-Lagrave | Caruana | Vachier-Lagrave | Caruana |
| 4 | Nepomniachtchi | Caruana | So | Grischuk | Nepomniachtchi |
| 5 | Giri | So | Grischuk | Aronian | Giri |
| 6 | Grischuk | Nepomniachtchi | Nepomniachtchi | Giri | Grischuk |
| 7 | Vachier-Lagrave | Aronian | Giri | Wildcard | Vachier-Lagrave |
| 8 | So | Wildcard | Wildcard | Wildcard | So |
| 9 | Aronian | Wildcard | Wildcard | Wildcard | Aronian |
| 10 | Nakamura | Wildcard | Wildcard | Wildcard | Nakamura |
The full-tour players will be joined by three wildcard invitees at the events in Paris and Zagreb and by four wildcard invitees in St. Louis. Details of the wildcards for each of the events will be released later.
The tour consists of just five events this year, compared to eight last year. The London Chess Classic won't be part of it this time, not as a host for the playoffs, nor as a standalone event. This played an important role in Carlsen's availability as the Norwegian has a world championship match scheduled for November, and he tends to rest in the month after.
The full-tour participants were selected as follows:
| # | Selection Methodology |
Notes |
| 1-3 | 2019 GCT Standings | The top three winners from the 2019 Grand Chess Tour |
| 4–6 | FIDE Classical Rating | Top three (not already selected) of FIDE classical ratings on January 1, 2020 |
| 7-9 | Universal Rating System | Top three (not already selected) of Universal Rating List on January 1, 2020 |
| 10 | GCT Nominee | Selected by the GCT Advisory Board |
Tour participants will compete for a total prize fund of $1.275 million over the course of the season. The prize money for two classical tournaments will be $325,000 per event, while the prize fund for the rapid and blitz events will be $150,000 each. In addition, a bonus prize fund totaling $175,000 will be awarded to the top three overall tour finishers.
The 2020 Grand Chess Tour's major sponsors are Vivendi SA, Colliers International, the Saint Louis Chess Club, the Croatia National Tourist Board and the Superbet Foundation.
You can find these and other upcoming top events in our calendar at Chess.com/calendar.
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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