single-elimination
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...
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 ...
tournament that took place in
Khanty-Mansiysk
Khanty-Mansiysk ( rus, Ха́нты-Манси́йск, Khánty-Mansíysk, lit. ''Khanty-Mansi Town''; Khanty: , ''Jomvoćś''; Mansi: , ''Abga'') is a city and the administrative center of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Yugra, Russia. It stan ...
, Russia, from 9 September to 4 October 2019. It was won by Azerbaijani grandmaster
Teimour Radjabov
Teimour Boris oghlu Radjabov (also spelled Teymur Rajabov; az, Teymur Boris oğlu Rəcəbov, ; born 12 March 1987) is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster, ranked number 18 in the world
A former child prodigy, he earned the title of Grandmaste ...
. He and the runner-up,
Ding Liren
Ding Liren (; born 24 October 1992) is a Chinese chess grandmaster. He is the highest rated Chinese chess player in history and is also a three-time Chinese Chess Champion. He was the winner of the 2019 Grand Chess Tour, beating Maxime Vac ...
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (; born 21 October 1990), often referred to by his initials, MVL, is a French chess grandmaster who is the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. With a peak rating of 2819, Vachier-Lagrave is the seventh-highest ...
on tiebreaks. Vachier-Lagrave was eliminated by Radjabov in the semi-finals, but defeated Yu Yangyi to claim 3rd place.
Bidding process
There was only one bid received for the combined FIDE World Cup and Olympiad events, which was done by the
Yugra
Yugra or Iuhra ( Old Russian Югра ''Jugra''; Byzantine Greek Οὔγγροι ''Oὔggroi''; la, Ongariae
The tournament was a 7-round knockout event. The matches from round 1 to round 6 consisted of two classical games with a time control of 90 minutes per 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an
increment
Increment or incremental may refer to:
* Incrementalism, a theory (also used in politics as a synonym for gradualism)
* Increment and decrement operators, the operators ++ and -- in computer programming
* Incremental computing
* Incremental backu ...
of 30 seconds per move. The finals and the match for the third place consisted of four classical games.
If the score is tied after the classical games, rapid and, if necessary,
blitz
Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to:
Military uses
*Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign
*The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War
*, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...
tiebreaks are played the next day. Two games are played with a time control of 25 minutes per game plus 10 seconds increment. In the case of a tie, they are followed by two games with a time control of 10 minutes per game plus 10 seconds increment. If the score is still tied, two blitz games follow (5 minutes plus 3 seconds increment). If the score is tied 4–4 after all these games, a single "Armageddon" game is played: the player who wins the drawing of lots may choose the colour; White has 5 minutes per game and Black has 4 minutes, with an increment of 2 seconds per move starting from move 61, and White needs a win to advance to the next round; Black advances if they win or the game is drawn.
The two top finishers qualified for the 2020 Candidates Tournament. The rules in fact specified that it would be the top two finishers other than
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 ...
and
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 ...
, because Carlsen as World Champion does not play in the Candidates, and Caruana had already qualified for the Candidates. The rule was introduced because the World Champion and the previous challenger unexpectedly signed up for the previous edition Chess World Cup 2017. This time, though, Carlsen and Caruana both declined their invitations to the World Cup, so the qualifiers are simply the two finalists.
Schedule
Each of the first six rounds took three days: one day each for the two regular time limit games and then a third day for tiebreaks, if required. The final round has four days of regular time limit games and then a fifth day for tiebreaks, if required.
* Round 1: 10 September – 12 September
* Round 2: 13 September – 15 September
* Round 3: 16 September – 18 September
* Rest day: 19 September
* Round 4: 20 September – 22 September
* Round 5: 23 September – 25 September
* Round 6: 26 September – 28 September
* Rest day: 29 September
* Final and play-off for third place: 30 September – 4 October
Prize money
The total prize fund was US$1,600,000, with the first prize of US$110,000.
Participants
The participants were seeded by their FIDE rating of August 2019. All players are grandmasters unless indicated otherwise.
Qualification paths
Replacements
* Players from the list of qualifiers who declined to play:
** (World champion)
** (WWC) (decided to instead participate in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2019–20)
** (who decided to instead focus on qualifying for the Candidates via the
FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019
The FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019 was a chess tournament that formed part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship 2021. It was played on October 10 to 21 2019, on the Isle of Man.
)
** (retired from top level chess in January 2019)
**
** (R)
* Their replacements, all from the ratings list, were:
**
**
**
**
**
** (R)
* Other replacements:
** (Z2.1) → replaced by (AM19) (the next player in Z2.1 did not attain the required score of 50%, so the position passed on to the AM19)
** (Z3.6) (retired) → replaced by (Z3.6). This made Press the lowest rated player to play in a Chess World Cup.Big Beasts Still Alive After First Round of World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk Ian Rogers, Lichess, 12-Sep-2019
** (PN) → replaced by (PN)
The Week in Chess
''The Week in Chess'' (TWIC) is a chess news web site. It was founded in 1994 and is based in the United Kingdom.
''TWIC'' has been edited by Mark Crowther since its inception in 1994. It began as a weekly Usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide d ...
{{Chess World Cups
2019
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World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...