Chess World Cup 2009

The Chess World Cup gets underway on the 21 November in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia.

In recent years, the Chess World Cup has become a regular qualifying event in the WCC cycle, even though the cycle itself has frequently changed, sometimes while still ongoing! 

The last World Cup in 2007 was won by Gata Kamsky, thereby earning him his ill-fated match with Topalov earlier this year.

As things currently stand, the winner of the 2009 World Cup will gain entry to the 8-player Candidates tournament that will decide a challenger for the winner of the Anand v Topalov WCC title match in April next year.

The other players in the candidates tournament will be:

The 1st (Aronian) and 2nd (currently Radjabov) finishers in the Grand Prix
The loser of the WCC match between Anand and Topalov
The 2 highest rated players not otherwise qualified (currently Carlsen and Kramnik)
The loser of the 2009 challenger match (Kamsky)
A wild-card nominated by the organisers (must be 2700 Elo+)

The Arts Centre venue for the 2009 World Cup (picture from the official website)

The event follows the KO format used by the FIDE World Championships in the late 90's/early 00's.  128 players are paired in 2-game mini-matches, with the winner progressing to the next round of 64, and so on until a 4-game final.  Any tied matches are settled by rapid games, and if necessary, blitz games followed by an Armageddon game. 

The 127 players who don't qualify for the candidates can console themselves with some respectable prize-money (figures shown include FIDE's 20% cut):

Round 1 losers: $6,000
Round 2 losers: $10,000
Round 3 losers: $16,000
Round 4 losers: $25,000
Round 5 losers: $35,000
Round 6 losers: $50,000
Runner-up: $80,000
Winner: $120,000

Games start at 3pm local time, with the time control being a fairly brisk 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes to finish, with a 30 second increment from the start.

Top seed is Boris Gelfand, and the full draw is below.  Further details at the official site here.