Hou Yifan becomes the first woman to play in this tour
Goldmoney Asian Rapid will feature the highest number of Indian players in a single Meltwater Champions Chess Tour event. They are - Vidit, Adhiban, Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi. While Vidit got the Wildcard, Arjun and Adhiban earned their place via the Indian Qualifier and Gukesh secured his place by winning the recently concluded Gelfand Challenge. That's not all, for the first time a woman will feature in this event - former women's world champion and current world no.1 among women - Hou Yifan.
Pairings and Schedule
The Goldmoney Asian Rapid starts on Saturday, June 26th and will conclude on Sunday, July 4th. Once again there’s a 3-day preliminary round-robin stage of rapid chess (15+10), before the top eight players advance to the knockout stage. The knockout stage is exactly like the previous events in this tour, where each match is played over two days, with four rapid games each day. If the match score is tied 1-1 after the second day, the players will then play two 5+3 blitz games followed by, if needed - Armageddon.
All games will start from 4:30 p.m. IST between 26th June and 4th July 2021.
Goldmoney Asian Rapid Participants
The lineup includes four players from the previous event of Champions Chess Tour, FTX Crypto Cup which was won by Magnus Carlsen. Alireza Firouzja makes his return to the tour as a Wildcard entrant for the first time since New in Chess Classic. The other Wildcard participants are - Vidit Gujrathi, Ding Liren, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vladimir Artemiev, Salem Saleh and Hou Yifan. Artemiev, Salem and Yifan are new invites. In fact, Hou Yifan will be the first woman to take part in this tour. Arjun Erigaisi and Adhiban through Indian Qualifier. Gukesh D won the Gelfand Challenge few days ago. Daniil Dubov and Peter Svidler won the public vote by the Premium members.
Tour standings and Prizes
Magnus Carlsen maintained his lead in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour with 271 points, followed by Wesley So at the second spot with 203 points and Teimour Radjabov at the third position with 133 points. Ian Nepomniachtchi overtook Anish Giri and moved to fourth place with 115 points. Anish Giri is the only other player above 100 points, at the fifth position with 111 points.
The prize fund for the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour is $1,640,000. Total prize fund in this final Regular event is $100,000 with the first prize being $30,000.
What are the participants up to lately?
Anish Giri in his humorous self tweeted the Round 1 pairings. Can you guess the players behind those aliases?
twitter.com/i/status/1408382302841884675
Jan Krzysztof-Duda congratulated Sam Shankland for winning the recently concluded Prague Masters and shared a photo of his 'Best Game of the fifth round' prize
twitter.com/i/status/1406703809636745220
'The Beast' Adhiban is ready
twitter.com/i/status/1407940403819540484
Arjun Erigaisi is looking forward to making the most of his opportunity
twitter.com/i/status/1408154514562056192
Links
Champions Chess Tour official site
