Gukesh and Vidit set to face World's best at SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz 2024
The third event of the Grand Chess Tour 2024 season is SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz. The defending champion, Magnus Carlsen (NOR) had to regretfully withdraw due to an urgent family matter. Levon Aronian (USA) was named as his replacement. D Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi will be the two Indians in the lineup. They will face Ian Nepomniachtchi, Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA), Fabiano Caruana (USA), Alireza Firouzja (FRA), Wesley So (USA), Anish Giri (NED) and Ivan Saric (CRO). Since Magnus is not playing, a new champion is guaranteed to be crowned. Who do you think will win this tournament? The tournament takes place at The Westin Zagreb in Zagreb, Croatia. In the first round, it will be Fabiano vs Vidit and So vs Gukesh. Round 1 starts today from 3 p.m. local time, 6:30 p.m. IST. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Grand Chess Tour
Levon Aronian replaces Magnus Carlsen
Schedule and Format
SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz will have three rounds per day in the Rapid portion from 10th to 12th July. The Blitz event will take place on 13th and 14th July. It will be a double round-robin event for the Blitz which means nine rounds will be played on each day. Round 1 starts at 3 p.m. local time, 6:30 p.m. IST. It will be a 10-player Round Robin event. Time control for Rapid will be 25 minutes + 10 seconds increment. For Blitz, it will be 5 minutes + 2 seconds increment.
Participants
The lineup includes the World no.3 - Fabiano Caruana, World no.5 - Ian Nepomniachtchi, FIDE Candidates 2024 winner and World no.7 - D Gukesh, former World Fischer Random champion and World no.9 - Wesley So, World no.14 - Anish Giri, World no.15 - Alireza Firouzja, the only two-time FIDE World Cup winner in history and World no.18 - Levon Aronian, World no.22 and India no.5 - Vidit Gujrathi, former World Blitz champion and World no.25 - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and, Croatia no.1 and World no.39 - Ivan Saric.
Rapid Round 1 pairings
| Bo. | Name | Result | Name | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GM | Nepomniachtchi, Ian | GM | Firouzja, Alireza | ||||
| 2 | GM | Caruana, Fabiano | GM | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | ||||
| 3 | GM | Aronian, Levon | GM | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | ||||
| 4 | GM | Saric, Ivan | GM | Giri, Anish | ||||
| 5 | GM | So, Wesley | GM | Gukesh, D |
Prize
The total prize fund for each of the Rapid and Blitz event is US$ 175000.
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