Berlin, February 3rd 2022 – The first leg of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix Series, organized by World Chess, will begin tomorrow in Berlin. During the next two weeks, sixteen of the world’s best chess players will battle it out for the two final Candidates spots, which is scheduled for June in Madrid.
The venue is the World Chess Club Berlin, located at the City Centre on Unter den Linden, 26-30, and the games will be played from February 4th-17th every afternoon starting at 3 PM. Along with the qualification for the Candidates, the event has a €150,000 prize fund, a €20,000 increase over the 2019 series.
The first-round clashes are expected to be fast and furious, with heavy-hitters Andrey Esipenko and Levon Aronian taking on Alexander Grischuk and Vidit Gujrathi, respectively. In addition to these great match-ups, the all-American stand-off between Wesley So and Lenier Dominguez will set the pace in pool D. Full pairings can be found here.
The event opened this morning with an online zoom press conference featuring Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE); Ilya Merenzon, CEO of World Chess, organizers of the Grand Prix; Marcus Fenner, General Secretary of the German Chess Federation and Chief Arbiter Ivan Syrovy. Also present in the conference call was elite Grand Master and chess prodigy Vincent Keymer, representing Germany in the series.
In his opening statement, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich said: “We are officially opening the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022, organized by World Chess. The series kicks off in Berlin, a city known for its strong chess culture. We hope that the tournament format changes will make the games even more exciting for all chess fans”.
Ilya Merenzon, CEO of World Chess, added: “World Chess as the organizer of the Grand Prix has done its utmost to make this tournament safe offline and spectacular online.”
The General Secretary of the German Chess Federation, Marcus Fenner, stated that “we will utilize this tournament to further increase the interest in chess in Germany and specifically the Berlin area, and together with the Berlin Chess Association we have prepared a series of sideevents which will be developed in the third leg of the series.”
Christian Milde, General Manager of Kaspersky in Central Europe, pinpointed the common ground between chess and cybersecurity: “As official cybersecurity partner of the FIDE World Chess Championship series since 2017, we are delighted to see the start of the new Grand Prix Series in Berlin. Chess and cybersecurity have a lot in common, including sharp minds and strategic thinking excellence. These are also essential skillsets for our work at Kaspersky and part of our commitment to building a safer future for everyone.”
And Keli Callaghan, VP of Marketing at Algorand, declared: “Algorand is honoured to be a longtime supporter of World Chess as the organization transforms and modernizes the traditional game by infusing blockchain into various applications. We are thrilled to be supporting the FIDE Grand Prix Series in 2022 and proud to partner with organizations who are harnessing the power of decentralized technology.”
Tournament system
The three-tournament series, which will unfold from February to April, features twenty-four of the world’s best Grandmasters, who will compete in two of the three events. In order to make the series more exciting and reduce the percentage of draws, FIDE and World Chess have changed the format.
This innovative approach is new for the chess world but very similar to the Super League: the first stage has four pools of four players, and the winner of each pool advances to the semifinals and then to the final.
All the games will be broadcasted live with expert commentary in three languages at https://chessarena.com/broadcasts/13604. More information and the full schedule can also be found on the worldchess.com website.
Due to COVID restrictions currently in place, only a limited number of tickets are available. Please note that the 2G+ rule applies to the event, which means that visiting the venue is only possible for those who either have a complete vaccination with EU-certified vaccine or proof of recovery and can additionally present a booster dose certificate or a negative test result.
For further questions, please contact: media@worldchess.com
Twitter: @theworldchess #TimeToSayBerlin
Official Photo FIDE Grand Prix Berlin Press kit:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ggyqowtp6odrqcg/AADc5Kkk34nd2q8CMQlqnRTsa?dl=0
Leading partners supporting the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022 include:
Kaspersky as the Official Cybersecurity Partner
Algorand as the Official Blockchain Partner
Prytek as the Technology Transfer Partner
FIDE Online Arena as the official Partner
About World Chess:
World Chess is a London-based chess gaming and entertainment group and FIDE’ official broadcaster and commercial partner. World Chess organized the FIDE Championship Matches in Russia, the USA, and the UK, and revolutionized the sport by signing the biggest media partnerships in history. World Chess develops Armageddon, the chess league for prime-time television. World Chess also runs FIDE Online Arena, the exclusive official chess gaming platform. More at worldchess.com.
About Kaspersky
Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company founded in 1997. Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise are constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky technologies, and we help 240,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.
About Algorand
Algorand is building the technology to power the Future of Finance (FutureFi), the convergence of traditional and decentralized models into a unified system that is inclusive, frictionless, and secure. Founded by Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Micali, Algorand developed a blockchain infrastructure that offers the interoperability and capacity to handle the volume of transactions needed for financial institutions and governments to smoothly transition into FutureFi. The technology of choice for more than 700 global organizations, Algorand is enabling the simple creation of next generation financial products, protocols and exchange of value. For more information, visit www.algorand.com.
About Prytek
The Prytek Group combines technology companies and services companies to create a new asset class. We build legacy service businesses and combine them with deep tech technologies to increase margins. We buy out entire operations and create efficiency and scalability through our technologies. The group is divided into a Corporate Arm - which comprises of controlled companies and an Investment Arm – which acts as a VC and PE fund of the Group. The goal of the Corporate Arm is to generate consolidated cash with a legacy vision, while the Investment Arm is to develop products for our operations and generate profit via equity value growth and exit at a high valuation.
Prytek Building Technologies, Delivering Managed Services. Prytek: www.prytek.com
About FIDE Online Arena
FIDE Online Arena is the exclusive online chess gaming platform that awards online ratings recognized by FIDE. It hosts rated tournaments and games 24 hours per day. The platform runs an advanced fairplay engine. Play official games at chessarena.com.
