On October 17th 2006 a press-conference was held in the Bank Pivdennyi (Odessa, Ukraine) to announce the organisation of the First ACP World Rapid Cup. Both the President of the Association of Chess Professionals, chess Grandmaster Mr Pavel Tregubov, and the Vice-President of the Ukrainian Chess Federation, President of the Odessa Region chess federation, Chairman of the Board of Bank Pivdennyi, Mr. Vadim Morokhovskiy took part in this press-conference.

The First ACP World Rapid Cup will take place in Odessa from January 4th to 8th 2007. The venue will be the Hotel Londonskaya. The tournament organisers are the Bank Pivdennyi and the Association of Chess Professionals. The total prize fund will amount to 136,000 US Dollars. 16 grandmasters will participate in this Knock-Out tournament. The time control will be 20 minutes for the whole game with an increment of 5 seconds per move.

Invitations and contracts will be sent to the players who finished among the best eight of the 1st ACP Tour (2004/05) and the 2nd ACP-Tour (2005/06). The ACP Tour is a yearly ranking system which includes most of the strongest chess events in the world.

Thus, following players will be officially invited:

Vladimir Kramnik (world champion, Russia), Viswanathan Anand (world champion in rapid chess, India), Alexander Morozevich (Russia), Levon Aronian (winner of the 2005 World Cup and Olympic Champion, Armenia), Peter Leko (Hungary), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Alexei Shirov (Spain), Sergey Rublevsky (Russia), Evgeny Bareev (Russia), Arkadij Naiditsch (Germany), Penteala Harikrishna (India), Ivan Sokolov (The Netherlands), Viorel Bologan (Moldova).

All these 14 players belong to the elite of modern chess, while 6 of them are currently ranked in the Top Ten of the rating list. They are also members of the Association of Chess Professionals. As Viswanathan Anand and Viorel Bologan finished in the top eight of both ACP Tours, two places in the First ACP World Rapid Cup remain vacant. The Bank Pivdennyi and the ACP will soon decide in common to whom they will award these “Wild Cards”.

It is worth mentioning that the First ACP World Rapid Cup will be the greatest chess event ever organised by the Bank Pivdennyi and by the ACP. It will also become one of the key tournaments on the chess calendar in 2007. Details and further information will be published in English and Russian at the official ACP website (www.chess-players.org).

The Bank Pivdennyi became the exclusive financial partner of the ACP. Recent meetings between them also lead to the creation of an ACP office in Odessa.

The ACP Board
The Press Department of the Bank Pivdennyi Posted by Picasa

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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