Las Vegas - $1 million prize fund

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Chris Rice
Posts: 3417
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:17 am

Las Vegas - $1 million prize fund

Post by Chris Rice » Thu Oct 09, 2014 7:05 am

Let's get ready to r-u-m-b-l-e!

The Millionaire Chess Tournament is taking place on 9-13th October 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the USA. The preliminary list of participants consists of 525 players, including 32 GMs. They will be vying for the hefty prize fund of $1,000,000.

Registration list with Wesley So the No 1 seed at 2855 (it says FIDE rated but they are either USCF ratings or 100 points added to the FIDE rating plus we've got sandbagging preventative measures):

http://millionairechess.com/news/registration-list/

Tournament schedule for the main event. Las Vegas is 8 hours behind UK and the event changes after round 7 (see below):

Round 1: Thursday, October 9 @ 12:00 p.m. (8pm UK)
Round 2: Thursday, October 9 @ 7:00 p.m. (3am October 10 UK)
Round 3: Friday, October 10 @ 11:00 a.m. (7pm UK)
Round 4: Friday, October 10 @ 6:00 p.m. (2am October 11 UK)
Round 5: Saturday, October 11 @ 11:00 a.m.
Round 6: Saturday, October 11 @ 6:00 p.m.
Round 7: Sunday, October 12 @ 11:00 a.m.

Between rounds 7 and 8, tie-breaks will determine top four players for Semi-Finals & Finals.

Qualifying Round: Sunday, October 12 @ 6:00 p.m.

The full schedule for the qualifying round will depend on the number of players competing for the final four spots and will be posted an hour before the beginning of the round. All players who do not make it into the final four will continue to play rounds 8 and 9 to determine 5th place and below, and to qualify for norms. Note the early start time.

Round 8: Monday, October 13 @ 10:00 a.m.
Round 9: Monday, October 13 @ 5:00 p.m.

http://millionairechess.com/tournament/schedule/

Live games should come up on this link
http://millionairechess.com/live-stream ... pen-group/

Chris Rice
Posts: 3417
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:17 am

Re: Las Vegas - $1 million prize fund

Post by Chris Rice » Fri Oct 10, 2014 9:32 am

Rd 1 results
So, Wesley vs Perez, Robert M [1-0]
Permodo, Carlos Andres vs Bu, Xiangzhi [0-1]
Le, Quang Liem vs Rojas Sepulveda, Eduardo [1-0]
Kavutskiy, Konstantin vs Yu, Yangyi [0-1]
Mamedov, Rauf vs Inants, Aghasi [1-0]
Schmakel, Sam A vs Dreev, Aleksey [0-1]
Akobian, Varuzhan vs Vibbert, Sean [1-0]
Williams, Justus D vs Azarov, Sergei [1-0]
Najer, Evgeniy vs Adithya, B [1/2-1/2]
Rozman, Levy vs Shankland, Samuel L [0-1]
Robson, Ray vs Morrison, William [1-0]
Gulamali, Kazim vs Gareev, Timur [0-1]
Naroditsky, Daniel vs Liu, Elliot [1-0]
Katz, Benjamin J vs Rives, Hal [1-0]
Bynum, Michael R vs Cruz Fiallos, Hamilton Tarley [0-1]
Anthony, Ralph J vs Karthikaeya Narayanan P [1/2-1/2]

Round: 2
Ivanov, Alexander vs So, Wesley [0-1]
Bu, Xiangzhi vs Chandra, Akshat [1-0]
Wan, Yunguo vs Le, Quang Liem [1-0]
Yu, Yangyi vs Fishbein, Alexander [1-0]
Kadric, Denis vs Mamedov, Rauf [1/2-1/2]
Dreev, Aleksey vs Xiong, Jeffery [0-1]
Berczes, David vs Akobian, Varuzhan [1/2-1/2]
Shankland, Samuel L vs Krush, Irina [1-0]
Drozdowski, Kacper vs Robson, Ray [1/2-1/2]
Gareev, Timur vs Milovanovic, Rade [1-0]
Kacheishvili, Giorgi vs Arngrimsson, Dagur [1/2-1/2]
Kjartansson, Gudmundur vs Ghaem Maghami, Ehsan [0-1]


Chris Rice
Posts: 3417
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:17 am

Re: Las Vegas - $1 million prize fund

Post by Chris Rice » Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:51 pm

Progress report on ChessBase entitled 'Impressions from the Millionaire Chess Open' http://en.chessbase.com/post/impression ... chess-open

Quite a telling comment at the bottom of the page "Has the tournament attracted enough participants to cover its costs?"

If its managed to break even or even get close to that then this might be a tournament of the future using a kind of crowdfunding business model.

Chris Rice
Posts: 3417
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:17 am

Re: Las Vegas - $1 million prize fund

Post by Chris Rice » Tue Oct 14, 2014 7:21 am

Clearly interest in this tournament hasn't been overwhelming. Perhaps this was due to the organisers not being able to attract the world's very top players even with what was marketed as a staggering prize fund. This is not unusual for a first edition of a tournament and once they have been running for a few years and establish themselves as a regular event on the calendar then they can be quite successful. I'm thinking of tournaments like Gibraltar for instance. However, I guess we'll have to see whether the principal organisers, Maurice Ashley and Amy Lee, have gained sufficient confidence from this tournament to have the energy and enthusiam to repeat it. For the record this is what happened when the split came and the four top players emerged:

In the semifinal, Ray Robson upset Olympiad double Gold medalist Yu Yangyi to be the first to qualify for the final.
Wesley So, beat Zhou Jianchao 3-1 to earn the other spot in the final.

In the final, Ray and Wesley drew the first game. Wesley won the second game and won $100,000. Ray got $50,000 as the runner up.

Update: BBC video!!! http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29573719

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