The

FIDE Grand Prix The FIDE Grand Prix is a biennial series of chess tournaments, organized by FIDE and its commercial partner Agon. Each series consist of three to six chess tournaments, which form part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship or ...

2014–15 was a series of four

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

tournaments that formed part of the qualification cycle for the

World Chess Championship 2016 The World Chess Championship 2016 was a chess match between the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and the challenger Sergey Karjakin to determine the World Chess Champion. Carlsen had been world champion since 2013, while Karjakin qualified ...

Fabiano Caruana Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 20 days—the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United Sta ...

finished first, and

Hikaru Nakamura Christopher Hikaru Nakamura2016 Candidates Tournament The Candidates Tournament 2016 was an eight-player double round-robin chess tournament, held in Moscow, Russia, from 11 to 30 March 2016. The winner, Sergey Karjakin, earned the right to challenge the defending world champion, Magnus Carlsen of N ...

Format

In contrast to the two previous Grand Prix cycles the number of tournaments was decreased from six to four, and players played three tournaments instead of four. As a result, no results were discarded, but each tournament result counted toward the total points. Sixteen players were selected to compete in the tournaments. Each tournament was a 12-player, single round-robin tournament. In each round players scored 1 point for a win, ½ point for a

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and 0 for a loss. Grand Prix points were then allocated according to each player's standing in the tournament: 170 Grand Prix points for first place, 140 for second place, 110 for third place, and then 90 down to 10 points by steps of 10. In case of a tie in points the Grand Prix points are shared evenly by the tied players.

Players

The Grand Prix consists of 16 players. FIDE announced 11 qualifiers as per regulations, plus one nominee from each of the four organisers, and one FIDE President nominee. Five original invitees declined to participate:

Magnus Carlsen Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the reigning five-time World Chess Champion. He is also a three-time World Rapid Chess Champion and five-time World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen has h ...

Viswanathan Anand Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have surpassed an Elo rating o ...

, Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik and

Veselin Topalov Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; bg, Весели́н Александров Топа́лов; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion. Topalov became FIDE World Chess Champion by wi ...

. The first four of these had also declined to participate in the

FIDE Grand Prix 2012–13 The FIDE Grand Prix 2012–13 was a series of six chess tournaments that formed part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship 2014. Veselin Topalov finished first, and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov second in the overall standings. Both ...

. In a later interview, Aronian said "I found it quite insulting to compete in a tournament with the first prize half as large as my participation fee oralmost any other tournament tthat time." Moreover, there was no prize money for overall standings, as there had been in previous Grand Prixes. All five Grand Prix replacements were determined by the rating list as per regulations. The final list of players was announced on 9 September 2014. Iranian player Ehsan Ghaem-Maghami was replaced by Georgian Baadur Jobava after the third stop was moved from Tehran to Tbilisi.

Prize money and Grand Prix points

The prize money is €120,000 per single Grand Prix (down from €170,000) and there is no financial bonus for the overall standings (€420,000 last in 2012–13).

Tie breaks

With the objective of determining qualifiers to play in the Candidates 2016, and in the case that two or more players have equal cumulative points at the top, the following criteria were utilized to decide the overall Series winner and other overall placings: # Number of actual game result points scored in the three tournaments entered. # Number of games played with black. # Number of wins. # Number of black wins. # Drawing of lots.

Schedule

The third stop was initially to be played in Tehran, Iran but a move was announced in October. The fourth stop moved from Moscow to Khanty-Mansiysk.

Events crosstables

Baku 2014

Tashkent 2014

Tbilisi 2015

Khanty-Mansiysk 2015

Grand Prix standings

Grand Prix points in bold indicate a tournament win. Green indicates qualifiers of the 2016 Candidates Tournament

References

External links

FIDE Grand Prix: Official siteBaku Grand Prix: Official siteTashkent Grand Prix: Official siteTbilisi Grand Prix: Official siteKhanty-Mansiysk Grand Prix: Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fide Grand Prix 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix 2014 in chess 2015 in chess