Chess Grand Prix in Baku

Radjabov, Mamedyarov, and Gashimov to participate

Several days ago FIDE has officially announced the dates of the Gran Prix chess series. At first glance they are well thought and do not overlap with major tournaments. However, having in mind the concentration of events in the spring and the two important matches Kramnik Anand and Kamsky Topalov, it is very probable that some of the semi finalists for the world chess championship skip the first events. Indications have been coming from Azerbaijan, where the first tournament is going to take place.

Chess Grand Prix Baku, Azerbaijan

The online edition of Azerisport.com announced three sure players for the Chess Grand Prix in Baku, April 20th - May 6th. These are the top guns of Azerbaijan, GM Radjabov and GM Mamedyarov, who qualify according to the FIDE criteria of average rating (Oct-07 and Jan-07 to two decimal places). They will be joined by GM Vugar Gashimov, who will be the invited player to the first Gran Prix tournament.

According to sources of the same newspaper, Anand and Kramnik will not take part of the tournament. They might already have contracts with other tournaments or they just want to prepare for the Grand Slam tournament in Mexico. Bulgarian media have cited Silvio Danailov saying that Topalov cannot make it to Baku because Mtel Masters 2008 is very soon after the Gran Prix tournnment.

The winner of the World Cup Gata Kamsky and the finalist Alexei Shirov are about to sign their contracts for Baku. Kamsky will not go to this year's edition of the Mtel because of his match with Topalov in the autumn, while Shirov will be entering the possible players list. They will be joined by Peter Svidler. He is the second reserve in the invitation list, and the Gran Prix in Baku will be his first top competition of 2008. Another possible player that might join the race is Ivan Cheparinov. As segabg.com informs, in the next days the Bulgarian Chess Federation will make official request.There has been no information about the other three reserves - Polgar, Adams, and Grishuk. As soon as we have it, Chessdom readers will be the first to know it.

Chess Grand Prix Baku prize fund

A good news from Baku is that the recommended prize fund of FIDE (212 000 eur) is increased to 300 000 eur. This may very well be a good argument for strong participation, even in case of the absence of the Kramnik, Anand, and Topalov.