Grand-Prix 2017 Events Venues and Dates confirmed

[Ian Thompson]

Pairings/Results
Round 9 on 2017/07/15 at 14:00
Bo. No. Name Rtg Pts. Result Pts. Name Rtg No.
4 17 GM Riazantsev Alexander 2654 4½ 4½ GM Adams Michael 2736 9

So Adams gets 5 Black's despite starting with a White again. Not quite as bad as Sharjah where he got 5 Black's and a run of three Black's in a row in rounds 7, 8 and 9, but even so.

[NickFaulks]

So Adams gets 5 Black's despite starting with a White again.

I suppose the logic is that his opponent would have finished BBWBB. Pairings in a 9 round 18 player Swiss will always be tricky. Strange format.

[LawrenceCooper]

The Grand Prix leaderboard has been updated somewhat prematurely on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_Grand_Prix_2017 It does show how close it/was between Grischuk & Mamedyarov and how today's game could prove an important moment in deciding the two qualifying places.

[Mick Norris]

Yes, it confirms there are 5 players in the running for the 2 places

It leaves Aronian needing to reach the World Cup final, or get a wildcard

[Mick Norris]

Mamedyarov Li Chao Draw
Riazantsev Adams Draw
Inarkiev Gelfand Draw
Svidler Hou Yifan 1-0
Aronian Salem 1-0

[Mick Norris]

final round results

final standings

chess.com report with an interesting interview with Grischuk (and Giri)

[Mick Norris]

Grand Prix summary

As before, we have the potential problem that only 3 of the 18 playing Majorca in November have a chance to qualify for the Candidates via the GP (of course, the World Cup is in September, from which the finalists will qualify, so it may change by then)

Shak & Grischuk need Radjabov and Ding to finish outside the top 3, and MVL to finish outside the top 2 in Majorca to qualify via the GP

[Mick Norris]

Radjabov seems to be returning to form somewhat, doesn't he? Not at all an unwelcome development.

He's been given a place at the World Cup by the Organisers latest FIDE list of qualifiers

[Chris Rice]

Those wonderful people at AGON are now giving companies the chance to sponsor players for the Grand Prix. All you need is a credit card and for just $20,000 you can sponsor your very own leading chess player. Here's the blurb which includes claims that some chess players are considered to be the smartest people on the planet and admired by nations:

"World Chess Opens Online Store for Chess Sponsorship, Making Sponsorship Contracts Available for Smaller Companies

World Chess, the organizer of the World Chess Championship cycle events, has launched an online store where companies can buy a sponsorship contract with the world’s strongest chess players. Probably for the first time in sports, a top-level sports sponsorship contract can be purchased online with a credit card. This is a step by organizers of the World Chess Championship to bring chess into the marketing mix of companies worldwide.

Chess had become increasingly popular in the last few years, helped by wider adoption of smartphones and rise of new young chess stars, including current World Chess Champion, 26-year old Magnus Carlsen from Norway (who is also a fashion model). Recent Championship Match that was held at the Fulton Market in New York City, reached an audience of over 1bln people and was attended by movie stars and tech moguls.

A sponsorship contract for the Grand Prix Series, a qualifier for the 2018 World Chess Championship, will allow companies to become ‘national partners’ of such chess stars as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France or Peter Svidler of Russia, to position the company logo on players’ uniform and get exposure to over 600 million people who play and follow chess globally.

Ilya Merenzon, World Chess CEO says: “Chess players are a phenomenal marketing asset. Considered some of the smartest people on the planet, they are admired by nations. We are bringing this asset to companies who perhaps never thought of adding chess players to their marketing mix.
Championship level sports marketing has very high entrance barrier and we are changing this by introducing a store where companies can choose a player and buy a sponsorship contract in one click” adds Merenzon.

For $20,000, companies can buy an individual sponsorship contract for a Grand Prix Tournament which will take place in November of 2017 in Palma de Majorca, Spain. The event is a qualifier for the World Chess Championship and will feature chess superstars, such as Hikaru Nakamura, the US Champion, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, recent winner of the prestigious Sinquefeld Cup in St. Louis, Peter Svidler, 4-time Russian Champion, Levon Aronian or Armenia and more. There can be only one sponsorship contract per player and the arrangement is regulated by FIDE, chess governing body and International Olympic Committee."

Will be interesting to see how much traction this gets considering how few people wanted to part with $10 to watch the 2017 Grand Prix events live.

http://www.agonlimited.com/store

[Roger de Coverly]

get exposure to over 600 million people who play and follow chess globally.

If you quote a delusion often enough, does it make it true?

[Richard Bates]

Do the players get any say over their personal "sponsors"? What if they already have personal sponsorship? Or have a personal objection to the sponsoring company? And who actually benefits from the sponsorship money?

[Ian Thompson]

Those wonderful people at AGON are now giving companies the chance to sponsor players for the Grand Prix. All you need is a credit card and for just $20,000 you can sponsor your very own leading chess player.

I'm surprised that all players cost the same. I'd have thought the favourites to win the event would be worth more to a sponsor than those less likely to win.

get exposure to over 600 million people who play and follow chess globally.

If you quote a delusion often enough, does it make it true?

The brochure you can download telling you all the benefits of sponsoring players tells you, amongst other things, that:

"EXCLUSIVE ONLINE BROADCAST — 24 MILLION.
BROADCASTED BY OFFICIAL FIDE PLATFORM - WORLDCHESS.COM

The cycle is going to be exlusively broadcasted on worldchess.com — the official FIDE platform."

The brochure relates to the whole Grand Prix series, so Agon will already know how may of these 24 million people have watched their broadcast in the first three events. I wonder how many they need to watch the final event to reach their target - 23.9 something million I would guess.

[Angus French]

The Palma de Mallorca FIDE Grand Prix has just started... Am I missing something or is ChessBomb (in addition to Chess24) not covering the event?

[Reg Clucas]

The Palma de Mallorca FIDE Grand Prix has just started... Am I missing something or is ChessBomb (in addition to Chess24) not covering the event?

Presumably scared off by Agon? You can see the boards at https://worldchess.com/gp2017/.

[Angus French]

The Palma de Mallorca FIDE Grand Prix has just started... Am I missing something or is ChessBomb (in addition to Chess24) not covering the event?

Presumably scared off by Agon? You can see the boards at https://worldchess.com/gp2017/.

Or maybe they don't wish to lend support (if that's the way they see it)... I've tried looking at the boards at the official site (first time I've done that for an Agon event) but you only get the current positions (not the preceding moves) and there's no exchange of comments with other punters.