Grand Tour 2016

[Mick Norris]

Rapid & blitz - Paris 8-14 June
Rapid & blitz - Brussels-Leuven 15-21 June
$150K prize fund each

Sinquefield Cup St Louis 19 August - 2 Sept
London Chess Classic 7 - 19 Dec
$300K prize fund each

GCT $150K prize fund

[Mick Norris]

There will be 8 players who play the whole tour, plus 2 wildcards per event (which is what the Norwegians wanted last year)

[Mick Norris]

Sinquefield Cup rescheduled to August 4-16 following the change in dates for the Olympiad

[LawrenceCooper]

I gather that there is also a clash with the London Chess Classic & Qatar in 2016.

[Mick Norris]

I thought the LCC had been put back to allow Carlsen to play i.e. give him time after the WC match

Qatar started 19 Dec this year, so yes a potential overlap

[Mick Norris]

LCC dates confirmed

[Roger de Coverly]

The chosen dates 9th to 18th, starting on a Friday and ending on a Sunday, presumably strongly hint that the format for the parallel Festival events would follow the same format as in 2015. These being 1-2-2 weekend events the first weekend parallel to an Open with 9 rounds in 8 days (double round on the first Saturday) followed by the popular all one section rapidplay over the two days of the final weekend.

[Mick Norris]

Yes, I guess so

The full schedule is as follows:

Wednesday 7 December Arrival of Players
Thursday 8 December Pro-Biz Cup
Friday 9 December Round 1
Saturday 10 December Round 2
Sunday 11 December Round 3
Monday 12 December Round 4
Tuesday 13 December Round 5
Wednesday 14 December REST DAY
Thursday 15 December Round 6
Friday 16 December Round 7
Saturday 17 December Round 8
Sunday 18 December Round 9
Monday 19 December Closing Dinner and Prize giving

Players will be announced early March I believe

[Mick Norris]

Carlsen to play Norway, Bilbao Masters & Baku Olympiad but not Sinquefield Cup according to VG in Norway

[Tim Harding]

Carlsen to play Norway, Bilbao Masters & Baku Olympiad but not Sinquefield Cup according to VG in Norway

Will this mean MVL gets a deserved place on the Tour after all?

[Mick Norris]

2016 Grand Chess Tour | Participants

Name Fed Rating Born
Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2801 1975
Fabiano Caruana USA 2795 1992
Anish Giri NED 2790 1994
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave FRA 2788 1990
Hikaru Nakamura USA 2787 1987
Levon Aronian ARM 2784 1982
Wesley So USA 2773 1993
Viswanthan Anand IND 2770 1969
Veselin Topalov BUL 2754 1975

Carlsen will only play the 2 blitz & rapid events

chess.com

[Mick Norris]

chess.com

Field is Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Veselin Topalov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

In Paris (9-12 June), we also have Laurent Fressinet, in Leuven (17-20 June) we also have Vishy Anand

Carslen is the wild card, as he won't be playing St Louis or London, Anand has to miss Paris as he is playing in Leon

[Roger de Coverly]

The title Grand Tour now risks possible confusion with the newly named Clarkson, Hammond and May show on Amazon , The Grand Tour, the initials of which TGT, could also stand for Top Gear Two.

[NickFaulks]

Three Gormless T***s.

[Mick Norris]

Paris website