— The third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022 begins on March 22 in Berlin;
— The event features 16 of the strongest chess players who will compete for two final spots in the Candidates Tournament;
— All tickets are sold out.
Berlin, March 21, 2022 – The third and final leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022 organized by World Chess gets underway in Berlin. For the next 13 days, chess fans' attention worldwide will be focused on World Chess Club Berlin, a chess venue in the German capital where the chess superstars will compete for €150,000 and, more importantly, for the last two spots in the upcoming Candidates Tournament.
It will be quite a challenge, as the winner of the second stage, GM Richard Rapport, has almost secured the first spot, but the strongest chess players competing in the last leg are determined to fight.
The pool stage will start on March 22. The winners of four groups will move to the semi-finals, and then two best players will meet in the final.
The pairings for Round 1 promise several exciting battles:
Pool A:
Andrey Esipenko (FIDE), 2723 — Grigoriy Oparin (FIDE), 2674
Levon Aronian (USA), 2785 — Hikaru Nakamura, (USA), 2750
Pool B:
Vincent Keymer (Germany), 2655 — Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), 2776
Daniil Dubov (FIDE), 2711 — Leinier Dominguez (USA), 2756
Pool C:
Sam Shankland (USA), 2704 — Wesley So (USA), 2778
Alexandr Predke (FIDE), 2682 — Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), 2761
Pool D:
Anish Giri (Netherlands), 2771 — Yu Yangyi (China), 2713
Nikita Vitiugov (FIDE), 2726 — Amin Tabatabaei (Iran), 2623
Due to covid restrictions, only 35 guests per day will be allowed to visit the venue. All the tickets for the tournament were sold out in February.
For those who did not manage to buy tickets or cannot attend the tournament for other reasons, the tournament will be broadcast on chessarena.com, the official gaming platform of the Series.
About the tournament:
The three-tournament series which will unfold from February to April features 24 of the world's best Grandmasters competing in two out of three events. To make the series more exciting with a minimum number of draws, FIDE and World Chess have changed the format. In this series, each event consists of a group stage followed by a knockout semi-final and final.
Two winners of the Series will qualify for the Candidates Tournament that will take place later in 2022. The prize fund for each event is €150,000, a €20,000 increase from 2019.
The third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix will take place in the city centre at Unter den Linden 26-30. The rounds start at 3PM Berlin time.
Due to COVID restrictions currently in place, only a limited number of tickets are available. Please note that the 3G rule applies to the event.
The games will be broadcast live on https://chessarena.com/broadcasts/13606
FIDE Grand Prix Series is brought to you by World Chess.
Leading partners supporting the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022:
Kaspersky as the Official Cybersecurity Partner;
Algorand as the Official Blockchain Partner;
Prytek as the Technology Transfer Partner;
FIDE Online Arena as the official Partner.
For further questions, please contact: media@worldchess.com
Official Photo FIDE Grand Prix Berlin Press kit
About World Chess
World Chess is a London-based chess gaming and entertainment group and FIDE' official broadcaster and commercial partner. World Chess organized the FIDE Championship Matches in Russia, the USA, and the UK, and revolutionized the sport by signing the biggest media partnerships in history. World Chess develops Armageddon, the chess league for prime-time television. World Chess also runs FIDE Online Arena, the exclusive official chess gaming platform. More at worldchess.com.
About Kaspersky
Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company founded in 1997. Kaspersky's deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company's comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky technologies and we help 240,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.
About Algorand
Algorand is building the technology to power the Future of Finance (FutureFi), the convergence of traditional and decentralized models into a unified system that is inclusive, frictionless, and secure. Founded by Turing Award-winning cryptographerSilvio Micali, Algorand developed a blockchain infrastructure that offers the interoperability and capacity to handle the volume of transactions needed for defi, financial institutions and governments to smoothly transition into FutureFi. The technology of choice for more than 700 global organizations, Algorand is enabling the simple creation of next generation financial products, protocols and exchange of value. For more information, visit www.algorand.com.
About Prytek
The Prytek Group combines technology companies and services companies to create a new asset class. We build legacy service businesses and combine them with deep tech technologies to increase margins. We buy out entire operations and create efficiency and scalability through our technologies. The group is divided into a Corporate Arm - which comprises of controlled companies and an Investment Arm – which acts as a VC and PE fund of the Group. The goal of the Corporate Arm is to generate consolidated cash with a legacy vision, while the Investment Arm is to develop products for our operations and generate profit via equity value growth and exit at a high valuation.
Prytek Building Technologies, Delivering Managed Services. Prytek: www.prytek.com
About FIDE Online Arena
FIDE Online Arena is the exclusive online chess gaming platform that awards online ratings recognized by FIDE. It hosts rated tournaments and games 24 hours per day. The platform runs an advanced fairplay engine. Play official games at chessarena.com.
