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The third stage of FIDE GP series 2014-2015 in Tbilisi |
The third stage of the Grand Prix series 2014-2015 will take place in Tbilisi (Georgia) from the 14th until 27th of February 2015. The organizers of the tournament are the Georgian Chess Federation, the Ministry of Sport and Youth of Georgia and Tbilisi City Hall. SOCAR Energy Georgia is the general sponsor of the event.
The opening ceremony and the games will be held at the Courtyard by Marriott Tbilisi.
The tournament follows the first and second stages which took place in Baku and Tashkent in 2014. Fabiano Caruana (ITA) and Boris Gelfand (ISR) tied for the first place in Baku Grand Prix. The sole winner of the second stage was Dmitry Andreikin.
Since the series have four tournaments, every result is count and after two stages Fabiano Caruana leads in overall Grand Prix standings (230 points), followed by Hikaru Nakamura (207 points) and Dmitry Andreikin (190 points).
Over eleven rounds, the strongest players in the world will compete in the round robin tournament with the time control of 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, with 60 minutes being added at that point and then each player will be allotted 15 minutes after the second time control and an increment of 30 seconds per move will be allowed from move 61 onwards. The schedule of the tournament is here. There will be English language commentary provided by Georgian GM Tornike Sanikidze.
The prize money offered by host city is 120,000 Euros. The winner of Grand Prix in Tbilisi will get 20,000 Euros.
In contrast to the two previous Grand Prix cycles the number of tournaments was decreased from six to four to be held over two years (2014-2015). Each of 16 players of Grand Prix series will play in three tournaments out of four and all his results will be taken into account for the overall final standings of the Grand Prix.
The winner and second placed player overall of the Grand Prix Series will qualify for the Candidates Tournament to be held in the last quarter of 2015 or the first half of 2016. A very special cup will be prepared for the strongest player in the Grand Prix series 2014-2015. During the opening ceremony in Baku the Classic Jewelry House Lobortas demonstrated the models of future Big and Small trophies to award the FIDE Grand Prix series winner. |
