Tal Memorial Preview

Thus far the chess fans have been spoilt with many strong tournaments in 2013, and yet another one is going to start in only three days: the Tal Memorial. With Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand in the line-up, it's surely one of the most anticipated events of the year. Here's a preview of what we can expect!

The 8th Tal Memorial will be held June 12-23, 2013 in Moscow, Russia. The venue is the new technology center Digital October. Like every year, the players will be staying at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton.

Participants

The tournament is a 10-player round robin with the following players:

1. Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2868)
2. Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2811)
3. Viswanathan Anand (India, 2783)
4. Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2775)
5. Fabiano Caruana (Italy, 2774)
6. Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2767)
7. Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2760)
8. Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2744)
9. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaidjan, 2726)
10. Dmitry Andreikin (Russia, 2724)

Details

The opening ceremony will be held on Friday Wednesday, June 12th and the playing days are June 13-15 (rounds 1-3), June 17-19 (rounds 4-6) and June 21-23 (rounds 7-9). The time control is 1 hour and 40 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes till the end of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move 1. It is forbidden to offer a draw before move 41. The Chief Arbiter is Andrzej Filipowicz (Poland); the tournament director is Ilya Levitov, Chairman of the Management Board of the Russian Chess Federation.

Tiebreak rules & prizes

In case of a tie the following tie-break rules are in place:

• Maximum number of games played with black pieces;
• Maximum number of wins;
• Direct encounter;
• Sonneborn-Berger score.

The total prize fund is 100,000 EUR (US $130,000). The prizes are distributed as follows:

1. 30,000 EUR
2. 20,000 EUR
3. 15,000 EUR
4. 10,000 EUR
5. 8,000 EUR
6. 6,000 EUR
7. 4,000 EUR
8. 3,000 EUR
9. 2,500 EUR
10. 1,500 EUR

Blitz

On Friday Wednesday, June 12th the Tal Memorial will be opened with a blitz tournament. This was also done last year and copied by the Norway Chess tournament last month. The idea is that instead of a drawing of lots, the final standings of the blitz tournament will determine the players' lot numbers in the main event.

Like the main event, this blitz tournament will be a single round robin. The time control is 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment, and the tie-break rules are the same as in the main event. The players are not just playing for a chance to have five white games instead of four in the "real" tournament, but also for the following prizes (a total prize fund of 15,000 EUR):

1. 5,000 EUR
2. 3,000 EUR
3. 2,000 EUR
4. 1,500 EUR
5. 1,000 EUR
6. 700 EUR
7. 600 EUR
8. 500 EUR
9. 400 EUR
10. 300 EUR

Commentary

It will surely be a treat to follow the tournament online, because every round there will be commentary by GMs Alexander Grischuk, Peter Svidler, Sergey Rublevsky and Sergey Shipov. This year the organizers are trying to make the commentary more interactive by having people from the audience asking questions. Furthermore, there will be press conferences in which the players explain their moves.

So make sure you've bookmarked the special online transmission page of the Russian Chess Federation's website by Wednesday, June 12th. At 18:00 local time (16:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT) the blitz spectacle starts. And, needless to say, here at Chess.com we'll have daily coverage!