FIDE Chess.com Isle Of Man: Round 1 Pairings
The inaugural FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss was officially opened on Wednesday at the Comis Hotel near the Isle of Man capital, Douglas. The pairings for the first round are out.
You can follow the games here as part of our live portal Chess.com/events. There's daily coverage by GM Daniel King and IM Anna Rudolf, joined by WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni for interviews, on Twitch.tv/chess.
The show starts daily at 14:50 local time, which is 15:50 (noon) CEST, 9:50 a.m. Eastern and 6:50 a.m. Pacific.
A total of 154 top players, from 42 countries, will take part in the tournament, which will produce one of the qualifiers for next year's Candidates' Tournament. Most of the participants attended both the players' meeting and the opening ceremony.
In his speech, the tournament director Alan Ormsby pointed out that the traditional Isle of Man tournament was "a natural fit" for the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss, and that it made sense for it to become part of the official world championship cycle.
Ormsby emphasized the importance of a great number of wildcards given to the organizers, as they helped increase the number of women and juniors at the event. He also thanked the Scheinberg family for its continuous support of the event over the years.
In his address at the opening ceremony, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich stated the importance of this tournament for the global chess community and complimented the organizers, who have now partnered with FIDE to make this event a part of the official world championship cycle.
“We are taking our risks with this first tournament based on the Swiss system and that will identify the player who will play in the Candidates’ Tournament. We truly believe that the combination of events played according to different systems provides a framework for identifying those who will challenge the world champion. It is very unusual that the world champion and the runner-up are participating in the qualifying event, but it makes this event even more interesting,” Dvorkovich said.
The FIDE president emphasized the importance of giving a chance to more women players, arguing that this “shows a truly open nature of our approach.” He also thanked the Isle of Man government for its involvement, adding that the whole chess community will be focused on this important event.
The tournament runs October 10-21 in the Comis Hotel & Golf Resort in Isle of Man. Games start each day at 3 p.m. local time, which is 16:00 CEST, 10 a.m. Eastern and 7 a.m. Pacific.
A full preview with all details on the tournament can be found here.
With an average rating of 2637 and 21 players rated above 2700, this tournament can be regarded as the strongest Swiss ever held. Among the players competing for the first prize of $70,000 are both World Champion Magnus Carlsen and world number-two Fabiano Caruana. The total prize fund is $433,000.
Top pairings for round one:
| Bo. | No. | Fed | Name | Rtg | vs | Result | Name | Rtg | No. |
| 1 | 1 | Carlsen Magnus | 2876 | - | Kuzubov Yuriy | 2636 | 78 | ||
| 2 | 79 | Zhang Zhong | 2636 | - | Caruana Fabiano | 2812 | 2 | ||
| 3 | 3 | So Wesley | 2767 | - | Moiseenko Alexander | 2635 | 80 | ||
| 4 | 81 | Najer Evgeniy | 2635 | - | Anand Viswanathan | 2765 | 4 | ||
| 5 | 5 | Yu Yangyi | 2763 | - | Mareco Sandro | 2634 | 82 | ||
| 6 | 83 | Abasov Nijat | 2632 | - | Karjakin Sergey | 2760 | 6 | ||
| 7 | 7 | Grischuk Alexander | 2759 | - | Jumabayev Rinat | 2630 | 84 | ||
| 8 | 85 | Tari Aryan | 2630 | - | Aronian Levon | 2758 | 8 | ||
| 9 | 9 | Harikrishna Pentala | 2748 | - | Alekseev Evgeny | 2629 | 86 | ||
| 10 | 87 | Bachmann Axel | 2629 | - | Wojtaszek Radoslaw | 2748 | 10 | ||
| 11 | 11 | Artemiev Vladislav | 2746 | - | Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo | 2629 | 88 | ||
| 12 | 89 | Parligras Mircea-Emilian | 2629 | - | Nakamura Hikaru | 2745 | 12 | ||
| 13 | 13 | Vitiugov Nikita | 2732 | - | Volokitin Andrei | 2627 | 90 | ||
| 14 | 91 | Akobian Varuzhan | 2625 | - | Svidler Peter | 2729 | 14 | ||
| 15 | 15 | Wang Hao | 2726 | - | Esipenko Andrey | 2624 | 92 | ||
| 16 | 93 | Huschenbeth Niclas | 2624 | - | Bu Xiangzhi | 2721 | 16 | ||
| 17 | 17 | Vidit Santosh Gujrathi | 2718 | - | Sethuraman S.P. | 2624 | 94 | ||
| 18 | 95 | Rakhmanov Aleksandr | 2621 | - | Matlakov Maxim | 2716 | 18 | ||
| 19 | 19 | Le Quang Liem | 2708 | - | Van Foreest Jorden | 2621 | 96 | ||
| 20 | 97 | Vocaturo Daniele | 2620 | - | Xiong Jeffery | 2708 | 20 |
(Full pairings here.)
Previous report:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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