The third edition of the SportAccord World Mind Games is set to take place on 12th-18th December in Beijing, China. Once again, chess is among the sports selected at this important meeting.
Sixteen male and sixteen female players will participate. To decide who qualifies, the organizers obtained the average between the classical, rapid and blitz ratings. There are also two wild cards for local players – Wang Yue and Wang Hao – and the inclusion of the current world blitz champion, Le Quang Liem.
The first qualified players in the men’s section are Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik. See full lists below.
Three events for men and women (separately) will be played. Interestingly, the Basque format will be included, a variation where each participant plays two games simultaneously, one with white and one with black.
· Rapid Events
· 16 male players – 16 female players (separate event for male/female)
· two days with seven rounds Swiss events;
· time control 20 mins each side plus 10 secs increment
· Blitz Events
· 16 male players – 16 female players (separate event for male/female)
· Three days with double round robin events (10 games per day);
· time control 3 mins each side plus 2 secs increment
· Basque Events
· 16 male players – 16 female players (separate event for male/female)
· two days with five rounds Swiss events;
· each player plays two games simultaneously per round with white and black pieces
· time control 20 mins each side plus 10 secs increment per game
Participants – Men’s event:
Participants – Women’s event:
For each event the following prizes will be awarded.
| Place | Men | Place | Women | ||||||
| 1 | $18.000 | 1 | $10.000 | ||||||
| 2 | $15.000 | 2 | $9.000 | ||||||
| 3 | $12.000 | 3 | $8.000 | ||||||
| 4 | $9.000 | 4 | $7.000 | ||||||
| 5 | $7.000 | 5 | $6.000 | ||||||
| 6 | $6.000 | 6 | $5.000 | ||||||
| 7 | $5.000 | 7 | $4.000 | ||||||
| 8 | $4.000 | 8 | $3.000 | ||||||
| 9 | $3.000 | 9 | $2.000 | ||||||
| 10 | $2.000 | 10 | $1.000 |
Tie break will be used only for final medal positions but money prizes will be split equally.
