FIDE announces the full details of the Grand-Prix 2014-2015, from which the first two (2) winners will qualify to the Candidates Tournament of the World Chess Championship Cycle 2014-2016. The schedule of the four events is the following:
a.) 1 – 15 October 2014: Baku, Azerbaijan
b.) 20 October – 3 November 2014: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
c.) 14 – 28 February 2015: Tehran, Iran
d.) 13 – 27 May 2015: Moscow, Russia
In total 16 players will participate, 11 qualifiers as per regulations (listed below) plus 4 nominees from the organisers (to be announced) plus 1 nominee of the FIDE President (to be announced).
The 11 original qualifiers who have to confirm their participation by 27 August 2014 are:
01. Carlsen, Magnus (World Champion)
02. Anand, Wiswanathan (World Ch. match 2013)
03. Kramnik, Vladimir (World Cup winner 2013)
04. Andreikin, Dmitry (World Cup runner-up 2013)
05. Tomashevsky, Evgeny (World Cup semi-finalist 2013)
06. Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime (World Cup semi-finalist 2013)
07. Aronian, Levon (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
08. Caruana, Fabiano (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
09. Grischuk, Alexander (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
10. Nakamura, Hikaru (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
11. Topalov, Veselin (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
The first reserves for any replacement needed are:
1. Karjakin, Sergey (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
2. Gelfand, Boris (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014)
3. Mamedyarov, S (Average Rating List 5/2013 to 4/2014).
Each player will play in 3 tournaments and all his results will be taken into account for the overall final standings of the Grand-Prix.
The full regulations of the Grand-Prix 2014-2015 can be downloaded from the FIDE website here:http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=31&view=article
The qualified players mentioned above shall download their participation contract from here and return it signed to the FIDE Secretariat, as scanned email or fax, by the deadline of 27 August 2014.
FIDE is doing a great job.