FIDE Candidates` Tournament officially opened by Ilyumzhinov
Baku, March 15 (AZERTAC). FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov officially opened the FIDE Candidates` Tournament on Thursday night during the opening ceremony held at the IET London, Savoy Place.
The tournament`s opening ceremony was attended by chess officials, sponsors, and international chess media.
An Azerbaijani delegation led by Minister of Sport and Youth Azad Rahimov, as well as Azerbaijan`s ambassador to the UK Fakhraddin Gurbanov and employees of the embassy also attended the event.
At the start of the ceremony, head of AGON Andrew Paulson presented the specially designed Championship chess set of World Chess, and gave the very first set to Mr. Ilyumzhinov. Designed by Pentagram, the chess set will be available for sale in a number of different editions.
Paulson also pointed out the new design of the playing hall and the ChessCasting software that will be used to transmit the games live to the world.
Before officially opening the event, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov reminded the guests of the long chess tradition in London, where 19th-century players like Howard Staunton, Wilhelm Steinitz and Emanuel Lasker achieved successes. “Over the next three weeks London will be the main chess centre in the world. Attention of millions of chess lovers will turn to London. It`s here the challenger for the title of World Champion will be determined. The Candidates` Tournament is the main and most expected tournament of the year in the chess world,” said Ilyumzhinov.
Lyumzhinov also took some time to thank the main sponsor of the event, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).
Azerbaijani Grand Master Teimour Radjabov will represent Azerbaijan at the tournament.
SOCAR was found as a sponsor, and Azerbaijan`s number one player Teimour Radjabov became the nominated player by the organizer. Eventually the tournament ended up in London, but both the sponsor and Radjabov stayed!
The other participants are Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, Alexander Grischuk of Russia, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, Peter Svidler of Russia and Boris Gelfand of Israel. The first round will start today at 14:00 GMT and will have Aronian-Carlsen, Gelfand-Radjabov, Ivanchuk-Grischuk and Svidler-Kramnik.
After the opening, a reception was arranged where actually some chess was played on the newly designed chess sets.
Before the ceremony there was a technical meeting with the players, arbiters and Appeals Committee. The regulations were not discussed in full, but the basics were mentioned. For instance, the time control will be 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from move 61. The tie-break rules are: result of mutual games; total number of wins; Sonneborn-Berger points.
Only if all these factors are equal, a play-off match will be arranged (only to determine the winner). In all cases of a tie, prize money will be shared. (The total prize fund is € 510,000.)
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