Magnus Carlsen Top Seed At 2nd Gashimov Memorial
The second edition of Shamkir Chess, the memorial for GM Vugar Gashimov, has been officially announced.
World Champion Magnus Carlsen is again the top-seeded player; world #2 GM Fabiano Caruana will return to Shamkir as well.
It was announced before in local media and now the website of main sponsor Synergy Group mentions it, too: the second edition of the Gashimov Memorial. This super-strong tournament will be held April 16-26 in Shamkir, Azerbijan.
The participants are the current world champion GM Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2863), former world champions Viswanathan Anand (India, 2791) and GM Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2783), world #2 GM Fabiano Caruana (Italy, 2802), world #7 Anish Giri (Netherlands, 2790), world #8 GM Wesley So (USA, 2788), world #11 GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and three players from Azerbaijan: world #13 GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2756), world #20 GM Teimour Radjabov (2738) and world #92 GM Rauf Mamedov (92th, 2658).
The tournament will again be a memorial for GM Vugar Gashimov, who sadly passed away on January, 10 2014 at the age of 27.
The opening ceremony will be held on April 16. The tournament, a 10-player round robin, runs April 17-26 with a rest day on April 22. The total prize fund is 100,000 Euros.
The rate of play will be 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes to finish the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move 61 onwards.
The main sponsor, Synergy Group, is one of the largest local investment companies in non-oil sector.
Shamkir is the eighth-largest city in Azerbaijan and the capital of the Shamkir Rayon. It is located in the northern foothills of the Lesser Caucasus, on the coast of the Chagirchay River on Tbilisi-Yevlakh highway.
All information on last year's tournament is still available on www.shamkirchess.az. Currently the organizers are working on the content for this year and and soon a new version of their site will be launched.
