Grand Chess Tour 2024: Schedule, participants; Format explained

The Poland leg of the Grand Chess Tour will be D Gukesh’s first event after winning the Candidates 2024 tournament in Canada.

Fabiano Caruana is the reigning Grand Chess Tour champion. | Photo Credit: FIDE

The 2024 edition of the Grand Chess Tour will start off with the Poland Rapid and Blitz leg on May 8.

This will be D Gukesh’s first event after winning the Candidates 2024 tournament in Canada.

What is the Grand Chess Tour?

The Grand Chess Tour is a multi-legged chess competition spread out over the year and across formats, where the top players in the world compete with each other to accumulate points and gather significant amount of cash prizes.

The tournament began in 2015 as a three-legged affair, with Magnus Carlsen emerging as the winner. The 2024 edition will be a five different competitions.

Which are the five legs of Grand Chess Tour 2024?

The five events and their dates for Grand Chess Tour 2024 are as follows:

• Superbet Poland Rapid & Blitz:  May 6-13, 2024 in Warsaw, Poland
• Superbet Romania Classic:  June 24-July 6, 2024 in Bucharest, Romania
• SuperUnited Croatia Rapid & Blitz:  July 8-15, 2024 in Zagreb, Croatia
• Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz:  August 10-17, 2024 in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
• Sinquefield Cup:  August 17-31, 2024 in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA

Who are the participants in Grand Chess Tour 2024?

Nine top chess players of the world were offered full tour invitations for the Grand Chess Tour 2024. As per the organisers, this was based on their performance in the previous edition, in addition to a number of factors, including URS rating, FIDE rating, fighting spirit, and sportsmanship

Full tour player invitations for the 2024 GCT edition

Fabiano Caruana

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

D Gukesh

Ian Nepomniachtchi

Alireza Firouzja

Anish Giri

R Praggnanandhaa

Nodirbek Abdusattorov

These nine players are required to play both the classical tournaments and two of the three rapid and blitz tournaments. In addition to these nine, GCT will also offer wildcard entries to other top players.

What is the prize pool for Grand Chess Tour 2024?

Tour participants will compete for a recently increased prize purse of $1.5 million over the course of the 2024 season. The prize fund for each of the two classical tournaments will be $350,000 and $175,000 per event for rapid and blitz. In addition, a bonus prize fund totaling $275,000 will be awarded.

Who are the Indian participants?

Other than Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa — who received full tour invitations, two other Indians have received wildcards for GCT.

• Poland - Arjun Erigaisi
• Croatia - Vidit Gujrathi