FIDE World Cups Begin in Baku

First games will be played on 30 July.

The FIDE World Cup and FIDE Women's World Cup will be held in Baku from 30 July to 24 August. With 206 players in the Open section (eight rounds), plus 103 in the Women’s competition (seven rounds), this event has seen its combined prize pool boosted to a whopping USD 2.5 million, the single largest one at any chess tournament in the world. The three top finishers in the events will advance to the next stage: the FIDE Candidates Tournaments.

The rating favourites of the open event are Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2835), Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2787), Fabiano Caruana (USA, 2782), Ian Nepomniachtchi (FIDE, 2779), Anish Giri (Netherlands, 2775), Wesley So (USA, 2769), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan, 2747), D. Gukesh (India, 2744), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 2742), and other well-known players.

Besides Nepomniachtchi, there will be 10 more Russian players participating in the event, namely Alexander Grischuk (2736), Nikita Vitiugov (2720), Daniil Dubov (2716), Peter Svidler (2688), Andrey Esipenko (2683), David Paravyan (2612), Mikhail Antipov (2606), and Arseniy Nesterov (2554). The Russian participants will play under the FIDE flag. 

The FIDE Women’s World Cup will feature the World Champion Ju Wenjun (China, 2564), Aleksandra Goryachkina (FIDE, 2557), Humpy Koneru (India, 2553), Kateryna Lagno (FIDE, 2552), Alexandra Kosteniuk (Switzerland, 2523), Tan Zhongyi (China, 2523), and many others.

All in all, six Russian players will compete in Baku. Goryachkina and Lagno will be joined by Polina Shuvalova (2496), Leya Garifullina (2408), Olga Badelka (2397), and Alina Bivol (2371). The Russian participants will play under the FIDE flag. 

In the Open section, the players participating in Round 1 are those seeded from number 51 to 206 and in the Women's are those seeded from number 26 to 103. The players participating in Round 2 shall be the winners of Round 1 and, respectively, the 50 and 25 highest-seeded players. All rounds are played with 2-game matches and a tie-break if needed.

The Opening Ceremony will be held on 29 July. First games of Round 1 will be played on 30 July. The rounds will begin at 2 PM Moscow time. 

The prize fund for the Open event is 1,834,000 USD and 676,250 USD for the Women's event.

Tournament page

Official website