Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

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Roger de Coverly
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Feb 14, 2017 10:09 am

Nigel White wrote:Just had an email from World Chess (i.e. Agon) trying to sell access to their coverage of the Grand Prix cycle.
This is from the FIDE site.
http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... ments.html

Are the tournaments of sufficient interest and quality that an on-line audience would even be interested, let alone want to pay to view?

The World Championship and Candidates were of sufficient interest that on-line sites were prepared to fight legal battles to provide their own coverage. Would the Grand Prix be worth fighting for?

Chris Rice
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Chris Rice » Tue Feb 14, 2017 10:50 am

Just taking those in turn:

Are the tournaments of sufficient interest? Well Nakamura always is popular, from a British perspective we have Mickey and there are several others such as Giri, Aronian, Svidler, MVL who are always in demand.

Are the tournaments of sufficient quality? I would think so, the players are all high class.

Would you pay to view? Well there's the crux of the matter. I think that whether the Grand Prix is of sufficient interest, particularly without Carlsen, is probably reflected in the subscription prices at $10 per Grand Prix or $30 for the year plus you get a few freebies. In other sports, tennis for instance of the top of my head, you pay a fee to watch the stream though you can follow the scores for free online. It's whether you would pay for the live coverage of chess and I do think it adds to the enjoyment watching the players in a live feed. Personally, I'm not convinced AGON's coverage up to now is worth paying for but I might be persuaded if AGON offered a free trial during the Sharjah tournament for example so I could benchmark what bang I'm getting for my buck against the other free sites.

PS Just seen the World Chess Club Premium $250 package. It appears you get a free official poster and 15% off official merchandising. Now that is a crap deal. https://worldchess.com/gp2017/

Chris Rice
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Chris Rice » Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:12 am

I don't know the back story to this but it appears that Hou Yifan has replaced Wei Yi for the 2017 Grand Prix.

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... ments.html

Leonard Barden
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Leonard Barden » Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:54 am

From Andrew Murray-Watson this morning:

The six who are not playing Sharjah are Giri, Harikrishna, Svidler, Inarkiev, Gelfand, and Radjabov

Mick Norris
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Mick Norris » Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:50 am

Chris Rice wrote:I don't know the back story to this but it appears that Hou Yifan has replaced Wei Yi for the 2017 Grand Prix
Which makes the chess24 article from 6 February look a bit daft
It also gives a path to the World Championship for exciting young players such as Richard Rapport and, in particular, Wei Yi.
I can't see anything on the Agon website though
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Nigel White
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Nigel White » Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:11 am

Chris Rice wrote:I don't know the back story to this but it appears that Hou Yifan has replaced Wei Yi for the 2017 Grand Prix.

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... ments.html
I pointed this out a couple of days ago
Nigel White wrote:Just had an email from World Chess (i.e. Agon) trying to sell access to their coverage of the Grand Prix cycle. It included drawn caricatures of the 24 players. Interestingly, Hou Yifan is shown (at the expense of Wei Yi). So is Hou Yifan included after all. or was Wei Yi a late replacement and they forgot to change their prepared promotional material?
But I still wonder whether this is a cock-up and in fact Wei Yi is a late replacement for Hou Yifan, but they forgot to change their blurb. The 'official' site makes no mention of Hou Yifan, but I find it disappointing that with only three days before it is due to start there is so little information available,

Mick Norris
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Mick Norris » Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:33 pm

Well. Agon are under a bit of pressure Jorge Vega letter
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Leonard Barden
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Leonard Barden » Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:55 pm

From Andrew Murray-Watson:

Hou Yifan is playing, which is fantastic news for women's chess. On background - she was always going to be playing and then decided very late on that she couldn't commit to the dates of the Grand Prix. So with the blessing of the Chinese Chess Federation we replaced her with Wei Li.

At the last minute Hou Yifan changed her mind about participating in the Grand Prix so, again with the support of the Chinese Chess Federation, she is now playing, as originally planed, and Wei Li dropped out.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Alex Holowczak » Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:02 pm

Leonard Barden wrote:From Andrew Murray-Watson:

Hou Yifan is playing, which is fantastic news for women's chess. On background - she was always going to be playing and then decided very late on that she couldn't commit to the dates of the Grand Prix. So with the blessing of the Chinese Chess Federation we replaced her with Wei Li.

At the last minute Hou Yifan changed her mind about participating in the Grand Prix so, again with the support of the Chinese Chess Federation, she is now playing, as originally planed, and Wei Li dropped out.
Interesting. At a guess, it seems like the Chinese Federation have paid for one of the wildcard places, which is why this is allowed. If that is the case, it has worked out well for Hou Yifan, because lots of other players could have spent their time preparing to play against Wei Li, while all the time Hou Yifan could have been preparing to play against the other 17 players. This doesn't seem equitable to me, but I suppose it's not as bad as if it were an All-Play-All.

Angus French
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Angus French » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:54 pm

I take it Wei Li is otherwise known as Wei Yi.

Have Agon said how players have qualified for the Grand Prix? For what it's worth, the regulations, which include a section - reproduced below - on how the participants are determined, is here.
Regulations for the 2016-2017 FIDE World Chess Grand-Prix Series wrote:
3. Qualifiers for the Grand Prix 2016-2017

The players who qualify for selection to play in the Grand Prix Series will be chosen on the following prioritised basis
until 24 players have accepted:

3.1 World Championship Match: The current World Champion and his opponent in the most recent World
Championship Match (2 players).

3.2 World Cup: The players who have qualified to the semi-final stage of the FIDE World Cup 2015 (4 players).

3.3 FIDE Rating: Based on an average calculation to two decimal places of the average from all published
FIDE ratings of classical (standard) chess from 1 June 2015 to 1 May 2016 divided by twelve (12), the
remaining players will be selected. If players have the same average rating, then the total number of rated games
in the twelve lists from 1 June 2015 to 1 May 2016 shall be decisive. That means the player with the greater
number of games shall qualify. A minimum of thirty (30) games are required for each player in the twelve FIDE
rating lists of classical (standard) chess from 1 June 2015 to 1 May 2016 (8 players).

3.4 ACP Tour: The one (1) highest-placed participant of the most recently completed ACP Tour, who has
not qualified with the previous criteria (1 player).

3.5 Organiser Nominees: Nine (9) players nominated by AGON with a published rating of at least 2700 in
classical, standard chess (or 2600 for former men and women national or world champions), in at least one
FIDE rating list of 2016 (9 players). In exceptional circumstances, and only for the Grand-Prix ending in 2017, AGON
may nominate players with a published rating of at least 2575 in at least one FIDE classical rating list of 2016.

3.6 Replacements. Any replacement for the initial selection of qualified players (or for any player who qualifies
more than once from articles 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4) will be made on the basis of Article 3.3 which takes into
account the average rating and greater number of games, if of equal rating
I think the FIDE Grand Prix may well end up being more interesting and exciting than the Grand Chess Tour (and other events, such as Altibox Norway Chess, which are focussed on attracting the top ten players):

1. The players are different and that means different personalities, different styles and different openings.
2. (As well as money) Places in the Candidates - and with them a chance to challenge for the world title - are at stake.
3. Players won't know exactly which opponents they're going to face (and with what colour). This will make preparation different.
4. Swiss pairings may make for more competitive games.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu Feb 16, 2017 8:28 am

Angus French wrote:I take it Wei Li is otherwise known as Wei Yi.
Oops, I just copied Leonard.
Angus French wrote:I think the FIDE Grand Prix may well end up being more interesting and exciting than the Grand Chess Tour (and other events, such as Altibox Norway Chess, which are focussed on attracting the top ten players):

1. The players are different and that means different personalities, different styles and different openings.
2. (As well as money) Places in the Candidates - and with them a chance to challenge for the world title - are at stake.
3. Players won't know exactly which opponents they're going to face (and with what colour). This will make preparation different.
4. Swiss pairings may make for more competitive games.
I think there are too many classical Round Robins involving the top players (or nearly the top players). It's all a bit boring and repetitive. I quite enjoy the World Cup format, because it's the only event of its type. Clearly a lot of the people who organise the very top events have enough money to spend organising whatever they want, but it always seems to end up being a classical Round Robin.

The Grand Prix is going to be interesting to me because it has context - an overall Grand Prix and then qualification for the candidates. The individual events of the Grand Tour have the interest of the context of the overall Grand Tour, but nothing beyond that. On the other hand, Norway Chess (and something like Wijk aan See) are standalone events with no wider context, and I don't find events like that interesting.

Mick Norris
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Mick Norris » Thu Feb 16, 2017 8:45 am

chess.com preview

Some interesting quotes from the players

Will be interesting if Sharjah turns out to have the weakest field of the 4 GPs, which makes me wonder if the players choose which event to miss, or the organisers
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Mick Norris
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Mick Norris » Sat Feb 18, 2017 9:38 am

Round 1 starts today at 11 am UK time

Bo. No. Name Rtg Pts. Result Pts. Name Rtg No.
1 1 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime 2796 0 0 GM Li Chao B 2720 10
2 11 GM Tomashevsky Evgeny 2711 0 0 GM Aronian Levon 2785 2
3 3 GM Nakamura Hikaru 2785 0 0 GM Jakovenko Dmitry 2709 12
4 13 GM Vallejo Pons Francisco 2709 0 0 GM Mamedyarov Shakhriyar 2766 4
5 5 GM Ding Liren 2760 0 0 GM Rapport Richard 2692 14
6 15 GM Riazantsev Alexander 2671 0 0 GM Eljanov Pavel 2759 6
7 7 GM Adams Michael 2751 0 0 GM Salem A.R. Saleh 2656 16
8 17 GM Hou Yifan 2651 0 0 GM Nepomniachtchi Ian 2749 8
9 9 GM Grischuk Alexander 2742 0 0 GM Hammer Jon Ludvig 2628 18
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Leonard Barden
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Leonard Barden » Sat Feb 18, 2017 12:48 pm

Adams needs a full point in round one, White against the local hope Salem Saleh, since that's probably the easiest picking he will have in the entire event. Mickey has gambitted his d4 pawn for good development and pressure against the Q-side, and so far the machine gives him +0.4 after 17 moves. Salem Saleh has consumed oceans of time and has half an hour left, 45 minutes down on the clock.

Angus French
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Re: Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

Post by Angus French » Sat Feb 18, 2017 1:14 pm

Is there video commentary anywhere - other than that provided by Agon? I see chess24.com have it for the Women's World Championship but not for the Grand Prix (how come FIDE have two world championship events taking place simultaneously?).