Caruana, Nakamura To Play Chess.com Isle of Man International

The Chess.com Isle of Man International Masters is shaping up to become one of the strongest open tournaments of the year. This week, the top two American GMs Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura have signed up.

Caruana and Nakamura, who finished playing the Sinquefield Cup on Sunday, are the new top seed. The Isle of Man International Masters will be held October 1-9 on the island between England and Northern Ireland. The two players are currently numbers three and six respectively in the live ratings.

"I am delighted about the presence of these two American elite players," said Isle of Man International Chess Committee Chairman Alan Ormsby. "This will help make the event one of the strongest opens to be held in the world this year."

The tournament now has six players rated above 2700, the others are GMs Pavel Eljanov (Ukraine, 2737), Michael Adams (England, 2727), Wang Hao (China, 2712) and Peter Leko (Hungary, 2709). Adams recently won the British Championship with a superb score of 10.0/11. Leko was a world championship contender in 2004, when he tied a match with Vladimir Kramnik 7-7.

The tournament will be held in the Villa Marina. | Photo courtesy Fiona Steil-Antoni.

"I am excited to see the top players in the world joining the Chess.com Isle of Man tournament," said Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest. "I love the players, the location, and the format. It’s going to be amazing."

Our site will also be involved in the production of the live broadcast, with commentary by GM Simon Williams and WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni. Staff members Peter Doggers and FM Mike Klein will be present as well.

IM Danny Rensch, Vice President of Content and Professional Relations of this site, said about the news:

"Can you say 'strongest open tournament of the year' five times fast? Having long discussed how great it would be to organize our own "over the board" Chess.com tournament, but always lacking the resources, we could not be more excited that we're now holding one of the best open events of 2016 without having to do any of the leg work (thanks Alan!). What Alan and the sponsors have been able to do (bringing in both Hikaru and Fabiano) has completely surpassed our expectations, and we applaud their efforts!"

A view of the tiny "Calf of Man" island, which has four lighthouses but only two residents!  | Photo: Wikipedia.

For this third edition, Chess.com has taken on the role as host and sponsor of the even from Pokerstars. Chess.com is joined in this role by the Scheinberg family; the Isle of Man Department of Economic Development also assists.

The prize fund of the tournament is £50,000, £12,000 going to first place (about €14,000 / $15,785 USD). Like at the Gibraltar Chess Festival, another very strong British open, there will also be sizable women's prizes, totaling £9,500 with £3,500 for allocated for first.

2016 Isle Of Man | Participants Mid-August (Top 30)

(Full list here.)