Giri, Kramnik, Ivanchuk Among Grand Chess Tour Wild Cards
GMs Anish Giri, Vladimir Kramnik, Vassily Ivanchuk, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alexander Grischuk, Baadur Jobava, Veselin Topalov, and Etienne Bacrot are the wild cards for this year's Grand Chess Tour events in Paris and Leuven.
These eight names have been added to the list of nine Grand Chess Tour participants that were already known:
- Wesley So (USA) – Winner, 2016 GCT
- Hikaru Nakamura (USA) – Runner-Up, 2016 GCT
- Fabiano Caruana (USA) – 3rd place, 2016 GCT
- Magnus Carlsen (NOR) – 1st slot, 2016 Average Rating
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) – 3rd slot, 2016 Average Rating
- Levon Aronian (ARM) – 1st alternate (as Kramnik declined)
- Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS) – wildcard
- Sergey Karjakin (RUS) – wildcard
- Viswanathan Anand (IND) – wildcard
The distribution of the players among the first two GCT events is as follows (TP = Tour Participant; WC = Wildcard):
The organizers of the Grand Chess Tour stated that wildcards have been selected using two criteria: the players URS™ standings (the GCT's own "Universal Rating System"), "as well as recent exceptional performances."
Both Paris and Leuven will have a prize fund of $150,000. In addition to these two events, the Grand Chess Tour will have not one but two events in St. Louis this year and one in London. Here's the full schedule.
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.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097
