Grand Swiss
Zitat von Conrad Schormann am 29. September 2023, 15:31 Uhr10 Deutsche - und die Weltklasse! Täglich ab 15.30 Uhrhttps://perlenvombodensee.de/2023/09/21/grand-swiss-2023-huschenbeth-rueckt-nach-kollars-auch/FIDE Grand Swiss und Women's Grand Swiss mit deutscher Rekordbeteiligung
Am Mittwoch, dem 25. Oktober, starten auf der Isle of Man in der Irischen See das FIDE Grand Swiss und das FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss. Die versammelte Weltspitze spielt hierbei nicht nur um ihren Anteil am Preisfonds von 460.000 bzw. 140.000 US-Dollar. In beiden Wettbewerben werden auch zwei Qualifikationsplätze für das WM-Kandidatenturnier bzw. das WM-Kandidatenturnier der Frauen vergeben. Spielort ist die Villa Marina in Douglas, der Hauptstadt der Insel.
Die beiden Grand Swiss gelten als jeweils stärkste Turniere der Welt im Schweizer System: In der offenen Konkurrenz werden 100 der 114 Plätze nach Elo-Rating vergeben, bei den Frauen sind es 40 der 50 Plätze. Mit Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Titelverteidiger Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri und Dommaraju Gukesh sowie Aleksandra Goryachkina, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Mariya Muzychuk, Zhongyi Tan und Anna Muzychuk sind jeweils 5 Top-Ten-Spieler bzw. -Spielerinnen dabei.
Deutsche Teilnehmerinnen & Teilnehmer
Aus Deutschland werden in diesem Jahr so viele deutsche Spitzenspieler wie noch nie an den Start gehen, acht im offenen Wettbewerb und zwei bei den Frauen: Vincent Keymer, Alexander Donchenko, Matthias Blübaum, Rasmus Svane, Dmitrij Kollars, Frederik Svane, Niclas Huschenbeth, Dennis Wagner, Elisabeth Pähtz und Dinara Wagner. Bei der letzten Ausgabe der beiden Grand Swiss im Jahr 2021 in Riga konnten Elisabeth Pähtz als Zweite bei den Frauen und Vincent Keymer als Fünfter im offenen Turnier Top-Ten-Platzierungen erreichen.
Offenes Turnier
Nr. Land Name Elo 1 GM Fabiano Caruana 2786 2 GM Hikaru Nakamura 2780 3 GM Alireza Firouzja 2777 4 GM Anish Giri 2760 5 GM D Gukesh 2758 6 GM Richard Rapport 2752 7 GM Levon Aronian 2742 8 GM R Praggnanandhaa 2738 9 GM Alexander Grischuk 2732 10 GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2727 11 GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda 2726 12 GM Yangyi Yu 2720 13 GM Vincent Keymer 2717 14 GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov 2716 15 GM Pentala Harikrishna 2716 16 GM Santosh Gujrathi Vidit 2716 17 GM Arjun Erigaisi 2712 18 GM Nikita Vitiugov 2711 19 GM Daniil Dubov 2710 20 GM Parham Maghsoodloo 2707 21 GM Jorden Van Foreest 2707 22 GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac 2701 23 GM Samuel Sevian 2698 24 GM Sam Shankland 2698 25 GM Vladislav Artemiev 2697 26 GM Haik M. Martirosyan 2696 27 GM Sarin Nihal 2694 28 GM Jeffery Xiong 2693 29 GM Vladimir Fedoseev 2691 30 GM Nils Grandelius 2689 31 GM David Navara 2689 32 GM Gabriel Sargissian 2686 33 GM M. Amin Tabatabaei 2685 34 GM Andrey Esipenko 2683 35 GM Alexey Sarana 2682 36 GM Bassem Amin 2680 37 GM Nijat Abasov 2679 38 GM Alexander Donchenko 2676 39 GM Maxim Matlakov 2674 40 GM Kirill Shevchenko 2671 41 GM Etienne Bacrot 2669 42 GM Matthias Bluebaum 2668 43 GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek 2668 44 GM Hans Moke Niemann 2667 45 GM Andrei Volokitin 2664 46 GM Ivan Cheparinov 2658 47 GM Anton Korobov 2658 48 GM Javokhir Sindarov 2658 49 GM Alexandr Predke 2656 50 GM Alexei Shirov 2655 51 GM David Anton Guijarro 2653 52 GM Vasyl Ivanchuk 2653 53 GM Mateusz Bartel 2651 54 GM Narayanan.S.L 2651 55 GM Hrant Melkumyan 2650 56 GM Alan Pichot 2650 57 GM Jaime Santos Latasa 2650 58 GM Chithambaram Vr. Aravindh 2649 59 GM Evgeniy Najer 2648 60 GM Ivan Saric 2647 61 GM Rasmus Svane 2646 62 GM Ruslan Ponomariov 2641 63 GM Raunak Sadhwani 2641 64 GM Rauf Mamedov 2640 65 GM Mustafa Yilmaz 2640 66 GM Max Warmerdam 2636 67 GM Chopra Aryan 2634 68 GM Benjamin Gledura 2633 69 GM Pouya Idani 2633 70 GM Dmitrij Kollars 2633 71 GM Volodar Murzin 2633 72 GM A.R. Saleh Salem 2632 73 GM Shant Sargsyan 2631 74 GM Cristobal Henriquez Villagra 2630 75 GM L' ami, Erwin 2627 76 GM Frederik Svane 2626 77 GM Vasif Durarbayli 2625 78 GM Yuriy Kuzubov 2625 79 GM Leon Luke Mendonca 2622 80 GM Aryan Tari 2619 81 GM Nikolas Theodorou 2619 82 GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen 2618 83 GM Samvel Ter-Sahakyan 2618 84 GM Nodirbek Yakubboev 2616 85 GM Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli 2615 86 GM Murali Karthikeyan 2611 87 GM Abhijeet Gupta 2609 88 GM Sandro Mareco 2606 89 GM Niclas Huschenbeth 2605 90 GM Axel Bachmann 2604 91 GM Manuel Petrosyan 2604 92 GM Vahap Sanal 2603 93 GM Abhimanyu Mishra 2592 94 GM Dennis Wagner 2589 95 GM Aydin Suleymanli 2588 96 GM Rinat Jumabayev 2585 97 GM Temur Kuybokarov 2584 98 GM Daniel Dardha 2580 99 GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov 2578 100 GM Alexandr Fier 2574 101 IM Elham Amar 2568 102 GM Adam Kozak 2566 103 GM Mircea-Emilian Parligras 2561 104 GM Denis Lazavik 2560 105 GM Marc`andria Maurizzi 2555 106 GM Adham Fawzy 2535 107 GM Michal Krasenkow 2531 108 IM Ihor Samunenkov 2531 109 IM Ediz Gurel 2514 110 IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux 2488 111 IM Ramazan Zhalmakhanov 2447 112 IM Shreyas Royal 2407 113 IOM Li Wu 2303 114 IOM IM Dietmar Kolbus 2225 Frauen
Nr. Land Name Elo 1 GM Aleksandra Goryachkina 2558 2 GM Alexandra Kosteniuk 2523 3 GM Mariya Muzychuk 2519 4 GM Zhongyi Tan 2517 5 GM Anna Muzychuk 2510 6 IM Polina Shuvalova 2506 7 GM Harika Dronavalli 2502 8 GM Elisabeth Paehtz 2484 9 GM Nino Batsiashvili 2475 10 IM Bibisara Assaubayeva 2469 11 WGM Dinara Wagner 2461 12 IM Rameshbabu Vaishali 2448 13 IM Marsel Efroimski 2447 14 GM Pia Cramling 2446 15 IM Gunay Mammadzada 2441 16 GM Valentina Gunina 2439 17 IM Lela Javakhishvili 2437 18 WGM Agrawal Vantika 2435 19 GM Anna Ushenina 2434 20 IM Teodora Injac 2426 21 GM Antoaneta Stefanova 2424 22 IM Irina Bulmaga 2423 23 GM Elina Danielian 2416 24 WGM Deshmukh Divya 2408 25 IM Leya Garifullina 2402 26 IM Ann Matnadze Bujiashvili 2400 27 IM Mai Narva 2399 28 GM Thanh Trang Hoang 2398 29 IM Ulviyya Fataliyeva 2393 30 IM Sophie Milliet 2391 31 IM Eline Roebers 2390 32 IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya 2389 33 IM Sachdev Tania 2389 34 FM Alice Lee 2388 35 IM Stavroula Tsolakidou 2385 36 WGM Govhar Beydullayeva 2383 37 GM Monika Socko 2380 38 IM Oliwia Kiolbasa 2375 39 WIM Shri B Savitha 2375 40 IM Deysi Cori T. 2367 41 IM Batkhuyag Munguntuul 2366 42 IM Medina Warda Aulia 2362 43 IM Pauline Guichard 2358 44 WIM Meruert Kamalidenova 2351 45 WIM Mariam Mkrtchyan 2343 46 WGM Mihaela Sandu 2298 47 GM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant 2297 48 WIM Javiera Belen Gomez Barrera 2266 49 WIM Trisha Kanyamarala 2184 50 WIM Lina Nassr 2066 Modus
- 11 Runden Schweizer System
- Bedenkzeit Offene Konkurrenz: 100 Minuten für die ersten 40 Züge, 50 Minuten für die nächsten 20 Züge, 15 Minuten für den Rest und 30 Sekunden Inkrement ab dem ersten Zug
- Bedenkzeit Frauen: 90 Minuten für die ersten 40 Züge, 30 Minuten für den Rest und 30 Sekunden Inkrement ab dem ersten Zug
- Jeweils die ersten beiden Plätze qualifizieren sich für das jeweilige WM-Kandidatenturnier
Zeitplan (CEST)
Tag Datum Uhrzeit Runde Mittwoch 25.10. 15:30 1 Donnerstag 26.10. 15:30 2 Freitag 27.10. 15:30 3 Samstag 28.10. 15:30 4 Sonntag 29.10. 15:30 5 Montag 30.10. 15:30 6 Dienstag 31.10. Ruhetag Mittwoch 01.11. 15:30 7 Donnerstag 02.11. 15:30 8 Freitag 03.11. 15:30 9 Samstag 04.11. 15:30 10 Sonntag 05.11. 15:00 11
Chess makes a welcome return to the Villa Marina in Douglas, Isle of ManPreview: 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss & Women's Grand Swiss
The Isle of Man plays host once more to the chess world's crème de la crème, as the 3rd FIDE Grand Swiss and 2nd FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss tournaments are set to launch on 25 October
The return of these prestigious world championship qualifying competitions to the Isle of Man marks a momentous occasion. Over the course of 12 days, from 25 October to 5 November, the island in the Irish Sea will emerge as the epicentre of the chess world, hosting an elite assembly of top-tier players fighting for the prizes, prestige and a spot in the 2024 Candidates.
Having debuted on the island in 2019, the tournaments are back in the familiar and distinguished setting of the Villa Marina, located along the island's picturesque seafront in the capital city of Douglas. This venue hosted five editions of the Chess.com Isle of Man Masters tournaments between 2014 and 2018, as well as the 2005 British Chess Championship.
Both open and women’s tournaments consist of eleven rounds, with one rest day after the first six rounds (on Tuesday, 31 October) and the final round 11 being played on Sunday 5 November, followed on the same day by the closing ceremony. Once again, the event enjoys the generous patronage of the Scheinberg family, with a prize fund to the tune of US$600,000, part of a seven-figure sponsorship package. The first three prizes in the open tournament are $80,000, $60,000 and $40,000 and, in the women’s tournament, $25,000, $17,500 and $15,000, respectively, with further prizes for those finishing below the top three places.
Alan Ormsby (Isle of Man) is the tournament director, IA Alex Holowczak (England) is the chief arbiter of the Grand Swiss and IA Ana Srebrnič (Slovenia) will serve as the chief arbiter of the Women’s Grand Swiss.
The biggest prize
The primary function of both tournaments is as world championship qualifiers, with the two highest-placed players from each going forward to the two 2024 FIDE World Candidates’ tournaments.
As in previous editions this is made a little complicated by the inclusion in the field of players who are already qualified for next year’s eight-player Candidates’ event who still wish to take part in the Grand Swiss.
The Isle of Man line-up features a handful of players who have already qualified for the Candidates via the recent FIDE World Cup competitions: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (India), Fabiano Caruana (USA) who were the runner-up and third-place finisher, respectively, in the month-long Baku knock-out competition. If they were to figure in the top two places in the Grand Swiss, the next player down from them on the final score table would qualify for the Candidates. Similarly, in the women’s competition, there are three players competing in the Isle of Man who have already qualified for the 2024 FIDE Women’s Candidates’ tournament, namely Aleksandra Goryachkina (competing under the FIDE flag), Nurgyul Salimova (Bulgaria) and Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine), so the same scenario applies if they also finish in the top two in the Women’s Grand Swiss.
A tournament for the world’s best
Only the world’s best can take part in the Grand Swiss, having had to compete within a rigorous set of requirements. This is all to ensure that the great majority of the competitors have a realistic chance of going further in the world championship cycle, plus a handful of continental and local nominees. The Grand Swiss features 21 players rated 2700+ and a further 73 rated 2600+. That leaves a further 15 to complete the field, of whom two are rated below 2400, being representatives of the host country.
Very few Swiss tournaments in chess history have approached this level of strength in depth, with notable exceptions being the two previous Grand Swiss competitions, plus the 2017 Chess.com Isle of Man Masters won by Magnus Carlsen.
2023 FIDE Grand Swiss: The top ten contenders
The two highest-rated contenders are both Americans: Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. There is a sense that neither is under pressure to succeed, for different reasons. Caruana is already through to the Candidates, so he will be in the Isle of Man for the money and the prestige. Having narrowly failed to become world champion in 2018 – he became the only losing finalist in world championship history not to lose a classical game to the eventual winner – he went through a relatively fallow period of recovery but now seems to be flexing his muscles once again. Good results in the Superbet Bucharest Classic in May and the FIDE World Cup in August bode well for the renewal of his assault on the world championship. A victory in the Grand Swiss – which would be a second straight success in the Isle of Man, where he finished 1st= in 2019 – would be another morale booster going into next year’s Candidates showdown.
Hikaru Nakamura (left) meeting Fabiano Caruana in the last round of the 2019 Grand Swiss. They are the top seeds in the 2023 event (photo Maria Emelianova/chess.com)Hikaru Nakamura’s reason for being relatively relaxed about his performance in the Grand Swiss is different. Two or three years ago his burgeoning career as a chess streamer seemed to indicate a dwindling interest in over the board play, or at least classical chess, but a strong showing in the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix saw him regain his status in the longer form of the game. His victory in Norway Chess 2023, ahead of both Carlsen and Caruana, took him to second place in the FIDE ratings for the first time since 2015. Nakamura’s experience and success in strong Swiss events – he has four Gibraltar Masters titles under his belt, including three consecutive wins from 2015 to 2017 – make him a strong contender in the 2023 Grand Swiss.
Alireza Firouzja, now of France and rated third in the tournament line-up, will be playing in the Isle of Man for the first time. At the time of the 2019 Grand Swiss, he was a star on the horizon. During that tournament, the director of the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee Jeroen van den Berg told me that he had invited the young Iranian for the next edition of the legendary Dutch tournament. Firouzja scored a 50% score on that occasion, his first appearance in an elite event, but made rapid progress during the following two years, culminating in his victory at the November 2021 Grand Swiss tournament held in Riga, thereby qualifying for the 2022 Candidates Tournament. His progress since then has been steady, if not meteoric, with few classical chess appearances. At 20, the best is yet to come.
Alireza will make his first appearance in the Isle of Man (Photo: Grand Chess Tour/ Lennart Ootes)Anish Giri is fourth in the Grand Swiss line-up. He has long been one of the most richly talented players in the world but at 29, in a chess world whose stars are getting ever younger, he may be close to his peak. This year has been successful for the mercurial Dutchman, with a win in the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee Masters, beating the then current and soon-to-be world champions Carlsen and Ding Liren along the way. Then, for good measure, he added another individual win against Ding Liren in the Bucharest Superbet Classic in May, though he did not win that event. His playful posts on social media give the impression of someone who is satisfied with his current status and lifestyle but perhaps that masks a more serious attitude and a steely ambition to reach the top. Giri has played in the Isle of Man once previously, in 2018, as top seed level with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Levon Aronian, when he was unbeaten on 6/9 to finish 10th.
It is hard to believe that Dommaraju Gukesh (better known in the press as Gukesh D) is still only 17. And perhaps even harder to believe that he was only 13 when he scored 6/11, bracketed with 21 players rated in the 2600s, four years ago in the 2019 Grand Swiss here. In that time, Gukesh has soared past the 2600 level to an eye-watering 2758 on the September 2023 rating list – eighth place in the world, one place ahead of his great Chennai predecessor, Vishy Anand. The maturity of his play mirrors the extraordinary calmness of his bearing, both at the board and away from it. Since a slightly negative start to 2023 with 5½/13 at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, Gukesh has steadily accumulated rating points during the year in events in Menorca, Dusseldorf (including a win versus rival Praggnanandhaa), Stavanger (including a win versus Firouzja), Ankara and the FIDE World Cup in Baku. His victims in the latter competition included Wang Hao, who won the 2019 Grand Swiss, before losing in the fifth round to eventual winner Magnus Carlsen. With a trajectory as impressive as this, it seems only a matter of time before he challenges for the world title.
Still only 17, Gukesh has recently overtaken former world champion Viswanathan Anand in the rating list (photo: Lennart Ootes)The 27-year-old Hungarian grandmaster Richard Rapport, who now represents Romania, is ranked fifth in the Grand Swiss line-up and 11th in the current world rating list. He has been a grandmaster since shortly before his 14th birthday. His year started with a 6½/13 performance in the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee event. During that tournament, he defeated Ding Liren, but in April he found himself on the same side of the board as the Chinese player as he acted as his second for his successful conquest of the world championship against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Subsequently, his only classical chess has been in the Bucharest Superbet Classic where he made a plus one score with no losses. Rapport, who lives with his wife Jovana Vojinovic in Belgrade, is known for his aggressive style of play. Rapport didn’t take part in the 2023 FIDE World Cup but is one of five players from the 2022 Candidates tournament to take part in the 2023 Grand Swiss, so he will be attempting to qualify for his second successive Candidates’ event.
World number 15 Levon Aronian will turn 41 the day after the Grand Swiss ends, so I fear he will have to endure being referred to as a ‘veteran’ by me and other chess writers. The Armenian/US star made a par score at Wijk aan Zee to start the year, but showed he is still a force to be reckoned with in winning the WR Masters in Dusseldorf in March ahead of a stellar field, despite losing a game to Ian Nepomniachtchi. He did not take part in the FIDE World Cup in Baku. He will be making his third appearance in the Isle of Man, having scored a modest 5½/9 in the 2018 Chess.com Isle of Man Masters but a stronger 7½/11 in the 2019 Grand Swiss. Aronian took part in the 2007 FIDE World Championship tournament, but it is fair to say that his results in this and subsequent Candidates’ tournaments have been generally disappointing. He failed to qualify for the 2020 Candidates and finished last in 2018. Could the 2023 Grand Swiss mark his last hurrah as a credible candidate for the world title?
Levon Aronian drew with Magnus Carlsen in the last round of the 2019 Grand Swiss. They tied for 3rd place behind Wang Hao and Fabiano Caruana. Photo: John SaundersAlexander Grischuk turns 40 a few weeks after the Grand Swiss ends, so he joins Aronian in the veteran category. Like the Armenian, Grischuk took part in the 2007 World Championship tournament in Mexico City but suffered a similarly disappointing result. His best performance in a world championship qualifier was in 2011 when he defeated Aronian and Kramnik in short matches before losing to Boris Gelfand in the match to decide the challenger to Vishy Anand. His classical chess appearances in 2023 have been confined to a team event in Sochi in June and the FIDE World Cup when he went out in the second round, defeated in rapid/blitz play-offs by the Iranian grandmaster Bardiya Daneshvar after two draws in the classical games. Grischuk will be making his third appearance in the Isle of Man: in 2018 he scored 6½/9, half a point behind the joint winners, and at the 2019 Grand Swiss, 7/11.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (more commonly Praggnanandhaa or simply ‘Prag’), along with Firouzja and Gukesh, forms the teenaged triumvirate that threatens to take the chess world by storm. Just 18, the brilliant youngster from Chennai astonished the world in August when he fought his way through to the final of the gruelling, four-week FIDE World Cup in Baku. His list of victims along the way comprised Maxime Lagarde, David Navara and then Hikaru Nakamura (in a rapid play-off – probably an even greater achievement than beating the American quickplay wizard at classical chess). That wasn’t the half of it, literally, as he still had to overcome Ferenc Berkes, Arjun Erigaisi and Fabiano Caruana before coming face to face with Magnus Carlsen, who was trying to win one title that had eluded him as world champion. Prag held Carlsen 1-1 in the classical games before succumbing in a rapid shoot-out, but his achievement in reaching the final was sensational enough and reverberated throughout the world, particularly in India, where he was seen being borne aloft by cheering crowds on arrival home and on his return to school.
Praggnanandhaa looking self-confident at the 2018 Isle of Man Masters (photo: John Saunders)Like Gukesh, Prag seems unaffected by all the ballyhoo going on around him. Perhaps his mere appearance in the Isle of Man is testament to this, since he is already qualified for the Candidates’ tournament, showing he is simply keen to get the chance to cross swords with the elite. Of which he is now definitely a member, of course. Prag first played in the Isle of Man Masters in 2016 when he scored an excellent 5½/9 as an 11-year-old, beating a 2645-rated GM in the final round. He made the same score in the significantly stronger 2017 Isle of Man Masters, taking a point off David Howell along the way, then 5/9 in 2018. With a win against current world champion Ding Liren under his belt already, Prag must already be focused on the world championship crown.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave completes the list of the ten highest-rated starters in the 2023 Grand Swiss. As someone very close in age to Magnus Carlsen – the Frenchman is a month older than the Norwegian – it would be easy to argue that MVL’s opportunities of challenging for the world title had come and gone, but perhaps it is more a matter of motivation than age. Some excellent results in 2021 and 2022 (first in the Shenzhen Masters and the Bucharest Superbet Classic) suggest he is still a strong contender. He has been less successful than others at qualifying for Candidates’ tournaments, but when his chance came in 2020/2021, as a replacement after Radjabov withdrew, his challenge was the victim of force majeure. The first leg of the double-cycle tournament saw him defeat Ian Nepomniachtchi and thus share the lead with the Russian, a point clear of the field, but at that point, the tournament had to be suspended due to the Covid-19 outbreak. It was not resumed until a year later when MVL started with a loss to Caruana, after which he was unable to make up the leeway on Nepomniachtchi though still finishing second.
In 2023 MVL’s classical chess appearances have been in the Bundesliga, the Bucharest Superbet Classic (where he made a par score) and the FIDE World Cup, in which he was eliminated in round three by the 17-year-old Uzbek grandmaster Javokhir Sindarov, who is also in the Grand Swiss line-up.
Other top contenders
There is nothing to say that the winner of the Grand Swiss will come from the ten players featured above. That still leaves another 11 players rated over 2700 in the field who all have a realistic chance of doing well, not to mention the huge phalanx of players in the 2600 range. I’ll pick out a few names... Jan-Krzysztof Duda reached the 2022 Candidates’ final and will be keen to do so again. Yu Yangyi has been active in Sharjah, Dubai and Baku (where he went out to Etienne Bacrot in a play-off): perhaps surprisingly, he is the only Chinese-registered player in the Grand Swiss line-up. England will be pinning its hopes on Nikita Vitiugov, who will be playing his first major event under the aegis of his new federation.
Regarding the teenaged triumvirate mentioned above: you may feel that my arithmetic is awry there as there are some more teenagers sporting 2700+ ratings, namely Vincent Keymer (Germany, aged 19), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan, 19) and Arjun Erigaisi (India): OK, the latter is now 20 but only just. Like Gukesh, Erigaisi reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup, while Keymer went out to Carlsen in round four despite beating the former world champion in their first game. Abdusattorov suffered an early exit in the World Cup but performed well in the 2023 Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee tournament, leading with a round to go but then losing to Jorden van Foreest and being overtaken by Anish Giri.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan, playing Pavel Eljanov at the 2019 Grand Swiss (Photo: Maria Emelianova/chess.com)Other young stars to look for, further down the rating list: Nihal Sarin (India, 19) is a few points short of the 2700 mark and has impressed in the Isle of Man on previous occasions, while Hans Niemann (USA, 20 in June) was 2708 as of last May but has since slipped to 2667. He’s been very active in 2023 but slipped in rating until an encouraging upswing in September saw him regain some points. At the time of writing Niemann is competing in the world junior championship in Mexico. We then have IM Ihor Samunenkov from Ukraine, who received a wild card for the event. The 14-year-old IM made headlines in 2021 when at the age of 12, he became the Ukrainian Champion! Currently rated 2515, Ihor is the world's number two among players under-14 after GM Abhimanyu Mishra, who is also taking part in the Grand Swiss. Mishra is just 14 years old but he’s been a grandmaster for two years already, having beaten Sergei Karjakin’s record for being the youngest player to qualify for the title. As of September 2023, his rating stands at 2599. He has surpassed rating performances of 2730+ twice in the past year so is on a similar trajectory to the other older teenagers in the field.
Then there is IM Ediz Gurel from Turkey – already a well-known face in the chess world who created a huge upset in the World Cup, beating the Serbian GM Velimir Ivic in just 28 moves. With an ELO of 2512, Gurel is the strongest 15-year-old in the world, rightfully receiving the wild card for the Grand Swiss where will be a difficult nut to crack for his opponents.
The established players taking part
The Grand Swiss is not just about the young stars, of course: some famous established stars will be doing battle too. For example, Alexei Shirov, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Boris Gelfand and the 2002 FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov are to be found in the list of competitors at numbers 46, 47, 51 and 64, respectively: all players who have either won the world title or else qualified for a world title match. It may seem incredible to see those numbers matched to those names, but it underlines the amazing strength in depth of the field.
A pensive Boris Gelfand at the 2019 Grand Swiss (photo: John Saunders)Alongside the 100+ GMs, there are seven IMs and just one untitled player competing. A few pointers about those players... 18-year-old IM Elham Amar of Norway is being talked about as a major talent in the making, in a country which knows a thing or two about brilliant young players. England has a second player in the line-up, 14-year-old IM Shreyas Royal. ‘Shrez’ is the country’s great hope for the future, and recently enjoyed a close encounter with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as the announcement was made of a £500,000 investment in British chess over the next two years. Shrez chalked up his first GM norm last year at a younger age than David Howell, so much is expected of him.
The Isle of Man is itself represented in the Grand Swiss by IM Dietmar Kolbus and Li Wu. You’ll note that their names appear in the list of competitors with the designation ‘IOM’ as the Isle of Man is now an affiliate organisation of FIDE and treated as a federation in many respects. Both are strong players with good track records in domestic UK competitions – notably the 4NCL (Four Nations Chess League) a.k.a. the British Team Championship, which Manx Liberty have won for the past two seasons – but the opposition they face in the Grand Swiss will be, shall we say, challenging.
THE 2023 FIDE WOMEN’S GRAND SWISS
Alongside the (open) Grand Swiss is the 2023 FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss, being held for the second time after the inaugural event in 2021 in Riga. The field consists of 50 qualified and (in a few cases) nominated players.
Aleksandra Goryachkina, ranked third in the world after Hou Yifan and Ju Wenjun, is probably the favourite to win this tournament. Though the gap between her and the next group of players is not huge in rating terms, she is a little bit younger (at 25) and in good form having won the FIDE Women’s World Cup in August. There, her progress was smooth as far as the quarter-final where she needed rapid games to eliminate Harika Dronavalli. She then defeated former world champion Tan Zhongyi in the semi-final (partial revenge for being knocked out of the 2022/23 Candidates’ tournament by the Chinese player) before once again needing rapid games (and a bit of good fortune) to see off Nurgyul Salimova in the final. This success qualified her for the Candidates’ tournament, so a victory in the Isle of Man would be icing on the cake. Having said, she is in good form in terms of recent success, her rating has suffered a little since its peak at 2611 in May 2021. Though she gained some points in the Grand Prix event in New Delhi in May, she lost more in the (open) European Individual Championship in Serbia in April and also in the Cyprus Grand Prix tournament in June, where Dinara Wagner (Germany) was the surprise winner.
Aleksandra is coming to the Isle of Man fresh from winning FIDE Women’s World Cup (Photo: Maria Emelianova/chess.com)Goryachkina’s closest rating rivals are all former women’s world champions. Alexandra Kosteniuk, ranked second in the line-up and seventh in the world, has switched federation from Russia to Switzerland this year. Having lost to Goryachkina in the 2022/2023 Candidates’ eliminator, she bounced back with victory in the Munich leg of the FIDE Grand Prix in March, then not so well in the Cyprus event before finishing first equal in the Cairns Cup in Saint Louis, USA, in July. In the 2023 FIDE World Cup she was surprisingly eliminated by Serbian IM Teodora Injac in the third round.
Tan Zhongyi is third-ranked player in the line-up in the 2023 FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss and currently ranked ninth in the world. Coming into 2023 following a comfortable win in the Chinese Women’s Championship, she then defeated Kateryna Lagno and Aleksandra Goryachkina in the quarter and semi-finals of the 2022/23 Candidates before being eliminated in the final by Lei Tingjie. She was mildly below par in the Munich Grand Prix but then suffered a defeat at the hands of Lei Tingjie in the Candidates’ final in May. Her World Cup aspirations were ended by Goryachkina in the semi-finals. She is the only Chinese player in the line-up, perhaps surprisingly for a country that has dominated women’s chess for so long.
Tan Zhongyi is only Chinese player in the 2023 FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss line-up (Photo: Timur Sattarov)Ranked fourth and fifth in the Women’s Grand Swiss line-up are Ukrainian sisters Mariya and Anna Muzychuk, currently rated within seven points of each other. Both lost to Lei Tingjie in the Candidates’ eliminators. The two then went head-to-head in round four of the World Cup when elder sister Anna won through in a rapid play-off, proceeding eventually to the semi-final where she lost to Nurgyul Salimova. However, she then won a 3rd/4th place play-off against Tan Zhongyi to secure her place in the 2024 Candidates’ competition. Thus, the pressure is on Mariya Muzychuk to secure her place via the Grand Swiss as her rating lags behind Humpy Koneru, who is likely to receive the final Candidates’ place by dint of her position in the women’s rankings.
Those are the five highest-rated players but there are no fewer than ten other holders of the (full) GM title who might challenge them, not to mention a few other up-and-coming players. Close in rating to the Muzychuk sisters are Harika Dronavalli (India) and Polina Shuvalova (FIDE). The 19-year-old Kazakh IM Bibisara Assaubayeva is a rising player, as is the 24-year-old Kalmyk-born German WGM Dinara Wagner after her astonishing victory and full GM norm in the Nicosia leg of the Grand Prix in June (after finishing last in Munich previously), followed by another first place in the Dortmund Sparkassen tournament in the same month. Another player to follow will be Nurgyul Salimova, after her remarkable success in reaching the final of the World Cup, thus clinching a place in the 2024 Candidates. She is 27th in the Isle of Man rankings.
Harika Dronavalli was the top female scorer in the 2019 Grand Swiss: now there is a separate Women's Grand Swiss in which she is sixth seed (photo: John Saunders)As well as Harika Dronavalli, India will be looking to Rameshbabu Vaishali, sister of Praggnanandhaa, and 21-year-old Agrawal Vantika to challenge for a high place. IM Tania Sachdev, so often with a microphone in her hand these days, will be back at the board in the Isle of Man, playing her first classical chess of 2023. Another young Indian player to look out for will be Shri B Savitha, a 16-year-old player already rated 2375 and with a world under-12 title to her name.
Other familiar faces in the line-up will be the evergreen Pia Cramling and former world champion Antoaneta Stefanova. Neither has been involved in Women’s World Championship or World Cup action recently, but they have still kept their hand in this year with some team chess and domestic events.
There is just the one US player in the field, but she is definitely one to watch. Alice Lee won’t turn 14 until a few days after the tournament but already holds the IM title and is just a few points short of 2400. After finishing 5th= in the 2022 US Women’s Championship, she’s been piling on the rating points in 2023, notably in a norm tournament in Saint Louis in January, and then the American Cup where she scored wins against Irina Krush, Nazi Paikidze and Atousa Pourkashiyan in coming second to the first-named in a rapid play-off. She completed her third IM norm during the 2023 Canadian Transnational Championship in June, beating two GMs and achieving a performance rating of 2531.
FIDE Grand Swiss und Women's Grand Swiss mit deutscher Rekordbeteiligung
Am Mittwoch, dem 25. Oktober, starten auf der Isle of Man in der Irischen See das FIDE Grand Swiss und das FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss. Die versammelte Weltspitze spielt hierbei nicht nur um ihren Anteil am Preisfonds von 460.000 bzw. 140.000 US-Dollar. In beiden Wettbewerben werden auch zwei Qualifikationsplätze für das WM-Kandidatenturnier bzw. das WM-Kandidatenturnier der Frauen vergeben. Spielort ist die Villa Marina in Douglas, der Hauptstadt der Insel.
Die beiden Grand Swiss gelten als jeweils stärkste Turniere der Welt im Schweizer System: In der offenen Konkurrenz werden 100 der 114 Plätze nach Elo-Rating vergeben, bei den Frauen sind es 40 der 50 Plätze. Mit Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Titelverteidiger Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri und Dommaraju Gukesh sowie Aleksandra Goryachkina, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Mariya Muzychuk, Zhongyi Tan und Anna Muzychuk sind jeweils 5 Top-Ten-Spieler bzw. -Spielerinnen dabei.
Deutsche Teilnehmerinnen & Teilnehmer
Aus Deutschland werden in diesem Jahr so viele deutsche Spitzenspieler wie noch nie an den Start gehen, acht im offenen Wettbewerb und zwei bei den Frauen: Vincent Keymer, Alexander Donchenko, Matthias Blübaum, Rasmus Svane, Dmitrij Kollars, Frederik Svane, Niclas Huschenbeth, Dennis Wagner, Elisabeth Pähtz und Dinara Wagner. Bei der letzten Ausgabe der beiden Grand Swiss im Jahr 2021 in Riga konnten Elisabeth Pähtz als Zweite bei den Frauen und Vincent Keymer als Fünfter im offenen Turnier Top-Ten-Platzierungen erreichen.
Offenes Turnier
Nr. | Land | Name | Elo | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | GM | Fabiano Caruana | 2786 | ||
2 | GM | Hikaru Nakamura | 2780 | ||
3 | GM | Alireza Firouzja | 2777 | ||
4 | GM | Anish Giri | 2760 | ||
5 | GM | D Gukesh | 2758 | ||
6 | GM | Richard Rapport | 2752 | ||
7 | GM | Levon Aronian | 2742 | ||
8 | GM | R Praggnanandhaa | 2738 | ||
9 | GM | Alexander Grischuk | 2732 | ||
10 | GM | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 2727 | ||
11 | GM | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 2726 | ||
12 | GM | Yangyi Yu | 2720 | ||
13 | GM | Vincent Keymer | 2717 | ||
14 | GM | Nodirbek Abdusattorov | 2716 | ||
15 | GM | Pentala Harikrishna | 2716 | ||
16 | GM | Santosh Gujrathi Vidit | 2716 | ||
17 | GM | Arjun Erigaisi | 2712 | ||
18 | GM | Nikita Vitiugov | 2711 | ||
19 | GM | Daniil Dubov | 2710 | ||
20 | GM | Parham Maghsoodloo | 2707 | ||
21 | GM | Jorden Van Foreest | 2707 | ||
22 | GM | Bogdan-Daniel Deac | 2701 | ||
23 | GM | Samuel Sevian | 2698 | ||
24 | GM | Sam Shankland | 2698 | ||
25 | GM | Vladislav Artemiev | 2697 | ||
26 | GM | Haik M. Martirosyan | 2696 | ||
27 | GM | Sarin Nihal | 2694 | ||
28 | GM | Jeffery Xiong | 2693 | ||
29 | GM | Vladimir Fedoseev | 2691 | ||
30 | GM | Nils Grandelius | 2689 | ||
31 | GM | David Navara | 2689 | ||
32 | GM | Gabriel Sargissian | 2686 | ||
33 | GM | M. Amin Tabatabaei | 2685 | ||
34 | GM | Andrey Esipenko | 2683 | ||
35 | GM | Alexey Sarana | 2682 | ||
36 | GM | Bassem Amin | 2680 | ||
37 | GM | Nijat Abasov | 2679 | ||
38 | GM | Alexander Donchenko | 2676 | ||
39 | GM | Maxim Matlakov | 2674 | ||
40 | GM | Kirill Shevchenko | 2671 | ||
41 | GM | Etienne Bacrot | 2669 | ||
42 | GM | Matthias Bluebaum | 2668 | ||
43 | GM | Radoslaw Wojtaszek | 2668 | ||
44 | GM | Hans Moke Niemann | 2667 | ||
45 | GM | Andrei Volokitin | 2664 | ||
46 | GM | Ivan Cheparinov | 2658 | ||
47 | GM | Anton Korobov | 2658 | ||
48 | GM | Javokhir Sindarov | 2658 | ||
49 | GM | Alexandr Predke | 2656 | ||
50 | GM | Alexei Shirov | 2655 | ||
51 | GM | David Anton Guijarro | 2653 | ||
52 | GM | Vasyl Ivanchuk | 2653 | ||
53 | GM | Mateusz Bartel | 2651 | ||
54 | GM | Narayanan.S.L | 2651 | ||
55 | GM | Hrant Melkumyan | 2650 | ||
56 | GM | Alan Pichot | 2650 | ||
57 | GM | Jaime Santos Latasa | 2650 | ||
58 | GM | Chithambaram Vr. Aravindh | 2649 | ||
59 | GM | Evgeniy Najer | 2648 | ||
60 | GM | Ivan Saric | 2647 | ||
61 | GM | Rasmus Svane | 2646 | ||
62 | GM | Ruslan Ponomariov | 2641 | ||
63 | GM | Raunak Sadhwani | 2641 | ||
64 | GM | Rauf Mamedov | 2640 | ||
65 | GM | Mustafa Yilmaz | 2640 | ||
66 | GM | Max Warmerdam | 2636 | ||
67 | GM | Chopra Aryan | 2634 | ||
68 | GM | Benjamin Gledura | 2633 | ||
69 | GM | Pouya Idani | 2633 | ||
70 | GM | Dmitrij Kollars | 2633 | ||
71 | GM | Volodar Murzin | 2633 | ||
72 | GM | A.R. Saleh Salem | 2632 | ||
73 | GM | Shant Sargsyan | 2631 | ||
74 | GM | Cristobal Henriquez Villagra | 2630 | ||
75 | GM | L' | ami, Erwin | 2627 | |
76 | GM | Frederik Svane | 2626 | ||
77 | GM | Vasif Durarbayli | 2625 | ||
78 | GM | Yuriy Kuzubov | 2625 | ||
79 | GM | Leon Luke Mendonca | 2622 | ||
80 | GM | Aryan Tari | 2619 | ||
81 | GM | Nikolas Theodorou | 2619 | ||
82 | GM | Thai Dai Van Nguyen | 2618 | ||
83 | GM | Samvel Ter-Sahakyan | 2618 | ||
84 | GM | Nodirbek Yakubboev | 2616 | ||
85 | GM | Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli | 2615 | ||
86 | GM | Murali Karthikeyan | 2611 | ||
87 | GM | Abhijeet Gupta | 2609 | ||
88 | GM | Sandro Mareco | 2606 | ||
89 | GM | Niclas Huschenbeth | 2605 | ||
90 | GM | Axel Bachmann | 2604 | ||
91 | GM | Manuel Petrosyan | 2604 | ||
92 | GM | Vahap Sanal | 2603 | ||
93 | GM | Abhimanyu Mishra | 2592 | ||
94 | GM | Dennis Wagner | 2589 | ||
95 | GM | Aydin Suleymanli | 2588 | ||
96 | GM | Rinat Jumabayev | 2585 | ||
97 | GM | Temur Kuybokarov | 2584 | ||
98 | GM | Daniel Dardha | 2580 | ||
99 | GM | Shamsiddin Vokhidov | 2578 | ||
100 | GM | Alexandr Fier | 2574 | ||
101 | IM | Elham Amar | 2568 | ||
102 | GM | Adam Kozak | 2566 | ||
103 | GM | Mircea-Emilian Parligras | 2561 | ||
104 | GM | Denis Lazavik | 2560 | ||
105 | GM | Marc`andria Maurizzi | 2555 | ||
106 | GM | Adham Fawzy | 2535 | ||
107 | GM | Michal Krasenkow | 2531 | ||
108 | IM | Ihor Samunenkov | 2531 | ||
109 | IM | Ediz Gurel | 2514 | ||
110 | IM | Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux | 2488 | ||
111 | IM | Ramazan Zhalmakhanov | 2447 | ||
112 | IM | Shreyas Royal | 2407 | ||
113 | IOM | Li Wu | 2303 | ||
114 | IOM | IM | Dietmar Kolbus | 2225 |
Frauen
Nr. | Land | Name | Elo | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | GM | Aleksandra Goryachkina | 2558 | |
2 | GM | Alexandra Kosteniuk | 2523 | |
3 | GM | Mariya Muzychuk | 2519 | |
4 | GM | Zhongyi Tan | 2517 | |
5 | GM | Anna Muzychuk | 2510 | |
6 | IM | Polina Shuvalova | 2506 | |
7 | GM | Harika Dronavalli | 2502 | |
8 | GM | Elisabeth Paehtz | 2484 | |
9 | GM | Nino Batsiashvili | 2475 | |
10 | IM | Bibisara Assaubayeva | 2469 | |
11 | WGM | Dinara Wagner | 2461 | |
12 | IM | Rameshbabu Vaishali | 2448 | |
13 | IM | Marsel Efroimski | 2447 | |
14 | GM | Pia Cramling | 2446 | |
15 | IM | Gunay Mammadzada | 2441 | |
16 | GM | Valentina Gunina | 2439 | |
17 | IM | Lela Javakhishvili | 2437 | |
18 | WGM | Agrawal Vantika | 2435 | |
19 | GM | Anna Ushenina | 2434 | |
20 | IM | Teodora Injac | 2426 | |
21 | GM | Antoaneta Stefanova | 2424 | |
22 | IM | Irina Bulmaga | 2423 | |
23 | GM | Elina Danielian | 2416 | |
24 | WGM | Deshmukh Divya | 2408 | |
25 | IM | Leya Garifullina | 2402 | |
26 | IM | Ann Matnadze Bujiashvili | 2400 | |
27 | IM | Mai Narva | 2399 | |
28 | GM | Thanh Trang Hoang | 2398 | |
29 | IM | Ulviyya Fataliyeva | 2393 | |
30 | IM | Sophie Milliet | 2391 | |
31 | IM | Eline Roebers | 2390 | |
32 | IM | Aleksandra Maltsevskaya | 2389 | |
33 | IM | Sachdev Tania | 2389 | |
34 | FM | Alice Lee | 2388 | |
35 | IM | Stavroula Tsolakidou | 2385 | |
36 | WGM | Govhar Beydullayeva | 2383 | |
37 | GM | Monika Socko | 2380 | |
38 | IM | Oliwia Kiolbasa | 2375 | |
39 | WIM | Shri B Savitha | 2375 | |
40 | IM | Deysi Cori T. | 2367 | |
41 | IM | Batkhuyag Munguntuul | 2366 | |
42 | IM | Medina Warda Aulia | 2362 | |
43 | IM | Pauline Guichard | 2358 | |
44 | WIM | Meruert Kamalidenova | 2351 | |
45 | WIM | Mariam Mkrtchyan | 2343 | |
46 | WGM | Mihaela Sandu | 2298 | |
47 | GM | Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant | 2297 | |
48 | WIM | Javiera Belen Gomez Barrera | 2266 | |
49 | WIM | Trisha Kanyamarala | 2184 | |
50 | WIM | Lina Nassr | 2066 |
Modus
- 11 Runden Schweizer System
- Bedenkzeit Offene Konkurrenz: 100 Minuten für die ersten 40 Züge, 50 Minuten für die nächsten 20 Züge, 15 Minuten für den Rest und 30 Sekunden Inkrement ab dem ersten Zug
- Bedenkzeit Frauen: 90 Minuten für die ersten 40 Züge, 30 Minuten für den Rest und 30 Sekunden Inkrement ab dem ersten Zug
- Jeweils die ersten beiden Plätze qualifizieren sich für das jeweilige WM-Kandidatenturnier
Zeitplan (CEST)
Tag | Datum | Uhrzeit | Runde |
---|---|---|---|
Mittwoch | 25.10. | 15:30 | 1 |
Donnerstag | 26.10. | 15:30 | 2 |
Freitag | 27.10. | 15:30 | 3 |
Samstag | 28.10. | 15:30 | 4 |
Sonntag | 29.10. | 15:30 | 5 |
Montag | 30.10. | 15:30 | 6 |
Dienstag | 31.10. | Ruhetag | |
Mittwoch | 01.11. | 15:30 | 7 |
Donnerstag | 02.11. | 15:30 | 8 |
Freitag | 03.11. | 15:30 | 9 |
Samstag | 04.11. | 15:30 | 10 |
Sonntag | 05.11. | 15:00 | 11 |
Chess makes a welcome return to the Villa Marina in Douglas, Isle of Man
Preview: 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss & Women's Grand Swiss
The Isle of Man plays host once more to the chess world's crème de la crème, as the 3rd FIDE Grand Swiss and 2nd FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss tournaments are set to launch on 25 October
The return of these prestigious world championship qualifying competitions to the Isle of Man marks a momentous occasion. Over the course of 12 days, from 25 October to 5 November, the island in the Irish Sea will emerge as the epicentre of the chess world, hosting an elite assembly of top-tier players fighting for the prizes, prestige and a spot in the 2024 Candidates.
Having debuted on the island in 2019, the tournaments are back in the familiar and distinguished setting of the Villa Marina, located along the island's picturesque seafront in the capital city of Douglas. This venue hosted five editions of the Chess.com Isle of Man Masters tournaments between 2014 and 2018, as well as the 2005 British Chess Championship.
Both open and women’s tournaments consist of eleven rounds, with one rest day after the first six rounds (on Tuesday, 31 October) and the final round 11 being played on Sunday 5 November, followed on the same day by the closing ceremony. Once again, the event enjoys the generous patronage of the Scheinberg family, with a prize fund to the tune of US$600,000, part of a seven-figure sponsorship package. The first three prizes in the open tournament are $80,000, $60,000 and $40,000 and, in the women’s tournament, $25,000, $17,500 and $15,000, respectively, with further prizes for those finishing below the top three places.
Alan Ormsby (Isle of Man) is the tournament director, IA Alex Holowczak (England) is the chief arbiter of the Grand Swiss and IA Ana Srebrnič (Slovenia) will serve as the chief arbiter of the Women’s Grand Swiss.
The biggest prize
The primary function of both tournaments is as world championship qualifiers, with the two highest-placed players from each going forward to the two 2024 FIDE World Candidates’ tournaments.
As in previous editions this is made a little complicated by the inclusion in the field of players who are already qualified for next year’s eight-player Candidates’ event who still wish to take part in the Grand Swiss.
The Isle of Man line-up features a handful of players who have already qualified for the Candidates via the recent FIDE World Cup competitions: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (India), Fabiano Caruana (USA) who were the runner-up and third-place finisher, respectively, in the month-long Baku knock-out competition. If they were to figure in the top two places in the Grand Swiss, the next player down from them on the final score table would qualify for the Candidates. Similarly, in the women’s competition, there are three players competing in the Isle of Man who have already qualified for the 2024 FIDE Women’s Candidates’ tournament, namely Aleksandra Goryachkina (competing under the FIDE flag), Nurgyul Salimova (Bulgaria) and Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine), so the same scenario applies if they also finish in the top two in the Women’s Grand Swiss.
A tournament for the world’s best
Only the world’s best can take part in the Grand Swiss, having had to compete within a rigorous set of requirements. This is all to ensure that the great majority of the competitors have a realistic chance of going further in the world championship cycle, plus a handful of continental and local nominees. The Grand Swiss features 21 players rated 2700+ and a further 73 rated 2600+. That leaves a further 15 to complete the field, of whom two are rated below 2400, being representatives of the host country.
Very few Swiss tournaments in chess history have approached this level of strength in depth, with notable exceptions being the two previous Grand Swiss competitions, plus the 2017 Chess.com Isle of Man Masters won by Magnus Carlsen.
2023 FIDE Grand Swiss: The top ten contenders
The two highest-rated contenders are both Americans: Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. There is a sense that neither is under pressure to succeed, for different reasons. Caruana is already through to the Candidates, so he will be in the Isle of Man for the money and the prestige. Having narrowly failed to become world champion in 2018 – he became the only losing finalist in world championship history not to lose a classical game to the eventual winner – he went through a relatively fallow period of recovery but now seems to be flexing his muscles once again. Good results in the Superbet Bucharest Classic in May and the FIDE World Cup in August bode well for the renewal of his assault on the world championship. A victory in the Grand Swiss – which would be a second straight success in the Isle of Man, where he finished 1st= in 2019 – would be another morale booster going into next year’s Candidates showdown.
Hikaru Nakamura (left) meeting Fabiano Caruana in the last round of the 2019 Grand Swiss. They are the top seeds in the 2023 event (photo Maria Emelianova/chess.com)
Hikaru Nakamura’s reason for being relatively relaxed about his performance in the Grand Swiss is different. Two or three years ago his burgeoning career as a chess streamer seemed to indicate a dwindling interest in over the board play, or at least classical chess, but a strong showing in the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix saw him regain his status in the longer form of the game. His victory in Norway Chess 2023, ahead of both Carlsen and Caruana, took him to second place in the FIDE ratings for the first time since 2015. Nakamura’s experience and success in strong Swiss events – he has four Gibraltar Masters titles under his belt, including three consecutive wins from 2015 to 2017 – make him a strong contender in the 2023 Grand Swiss.
Alireza Firouzja, now of France and rated third in the tournament line-up, will be playing in the Isle of Man for the first time. At the time of the 2019 Grand Swiss, he was a star on the horizon. During that tournament, the director of the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee Jeroen van den Berg told me that he had invited the young Iranian for the next edition of the legendary Dutch tournament. Firouzja scored a 50% score on that occasion, his first appearance in an elite event, but made rapid progress during the following two years, culminating in his victory at the November 2021 Grand Swiss tournament held in Riga, thereby qualifying for the 2022 Candidates Tournament. His progress since then has been steady, if not meteoric, with few classical chess appearances. At 20, the best is yet to come.
Alireza will make his first appearance in the Isle of Man (Photo: Grand Chess Tour/ Lennart Ootes)
Anish Giri is fourth in the Grand Swiss line-up. He has long been one of the most richly talented players in the world but at 29, in a chess world whose stars are getting ever younger, he may be close to his peak. This year has been successful for the mercurial Dutchman, with a win in the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee Masters, beating the then current and soon-to-be world champions Carlsen and Ding Liren along the way. Then, for good measure, he added another individual win against Ding Liren in the Bucharest Superbet Classic in May, though he did not win that event. His playful posts on social media give the impression of someone who is satisfied with his current status and lifestyle but perhaps that masks a more serious attitude and a steely ambition to reach the top. Giri has played in the Isle of Man once previously, in 2018, as top seed level with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Levon Aronian, when he was unbeaten on 6/9 to finish 10th.
It is hard to believe that Dommaraju Gukesh (better known in the press as Gukesh D) is still only 17. And perhaps even harder to believe that he was only 13 when he scored 6/11, bracketed with 21 players rated in the 2600s, four years ago in the 2019 Grand Swiss here. In that time, Gukesh has soared past the 2600 level to an eye-watering 2758 on the September 2023 rating list – eighth place in the world, one place ahead of his great Chennai predecessor, Vishy Anand. The maturity of his play mirrors the extraordinary calmness of his bearing, both at the board and away from it. Since a slightly negative start to 2023 with 5½/13 at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, Gukesh has steadily accumulated rating points during the year in events in Menorca, Dusseldorf (including a win versus rival Praggnanandhaa), Stavanger (including a win versus Firouzja), Ankara and the FIDE World Cup in Baku. His victims in the latter competition included Wang Hao, who won the 2019 Grand Swiss, before losing in the fifth round to eventual winner Magnus Carlsen. With a trajectory as impressive as this, it seems only a matter of time before he challenges for the world title.
Still only 17, Gukesh has recently overtaken former world champion Viswanathan Anand in the rating list (photo: Lennart Ootes)
The 27-year-old Hungarian grandmaster Richard Rapport, who now represents Romania, is ranked fifth in the Grand Swiss line-up and 11th in the current world rating list. He has been a grandmaster since shortly before his 14th birthday. His year started with a 6½/13 performance in the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee event. During that tournament, he defeated Ding Liren, but in April he found himself on the same side of the board as the Chinese player as he acted as his second for his successful conquest of the world championship against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Subsequently, his only classical chess has been in the Bucharest Superbet Classic where he made a plus one score with no losses. Rapport, who lives with his wife Jovana Vojinovic in Belgrade, is known for his aggressive style of play. Rapport didn’t take part in the 2023 FIDE World Cup but is one of five players from the 2022 Candidates tournament to take part in the 2023 Grand Swiss, so he will be attempting to qualify for his second successive Candidates’ event.
World number 15 Levon Aronian will turn 41 the day after the Grand Swiss ends, so I fear he will have to endure being referred to as a ‘veteran’ by me and other chess writers. The Armenian/US star made a par score at Wijk aan Zee to start the year, but showed he is still a force to be reckoned with in winning the WR Masters in Dusseldorf in March ahead of a stellar field, despite losing a game to Ian Nepomniachtchi. He did not take part in the FIDE World Cup in Baku. He will be making his third appearance in the Isle of Man, having scored a modest 5½/9 in the 2018 Chess.com Isle of Man Masters but a stronger 7½/11 in the 2019 Grand Swiss. Aronian took part in the 2007 FIDE World Championship tournament, but it is fair to say that his results in this and subsequent Candidates’ tournaments have been generally disappointing. He failed to qualify for the 2020 Candidates and finished last in 2018. Could the 2023 Grand Swiss mark his last hurrah as a credible candidate for the world title?
Levon Aronian drew with Magnus Carlsen in the last round of the 2019 Grand Swiss. They tied for 3rd place behind Wang Hao and Fabiano Caruana. Photo: John Saunders
Alexander Grischuk turns 40 a few weeks after the Grand Swiss ends, so he joins Aronian in the veteran category. Like the Armenian, Grischuk took part in the 2007 World Championship tournament in Mexico City but suffered a similarly disappointing result. His best performance in a world championship qualifier was in 2011 when he defeated Aronian and Kramnik in short matches before losing to Boris Gelfand in the match to decide the challenger to Vishy Anand. His classical chess appearances in 2023 have been confined to a team event in Sochi in June and the FIDE World Cup when he went out in the second round, defeated in rapid/blitz play-offs by the Iranian grandmaster Bardiya Daneshvar after two draws in the classical games. Grischuk will be making his third appearance in the Isle of Man: in 2018 he scored 6½/9, half a point behind the joint winners, and at the 2019 Grand Swiss, 7/11.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (more commonly Praggnanandhaa or simply ‘Prag’), along with Firouzja and Gukesh, forms the teenaged triumvirate that threatens to take the chess world by storm. Just 18, the brilliant youngster from Chennai astonished the world in August when he fought his way through to the final of the gruelling, four-week FIDE World Cup in Baku. His list of victims along the way comprised Maxime Lagarde, David Navara and then Hikaru Nakamura (in a rapid play-off – probably an even greater achievement than beating the American quickplay wizard at classical chess). That wasn’t the half of it, literally, as he still had to overcome Ferenc Berkes, Arjun Erigaisi and Fabiano Caruana before coming face to face with Magnus Carlsen, who was trying to win one title that had eluded him as world champion. Prag held Carlsen 1-1 in the classical games before succumbing in a rapid shoot-out, but his achievement in reaching the final was sensational enough and reverberated throughout the world, particularly in India, where he was seen being borne aloft by cheering crowds on arrival home and on his return to school.
Praggnanandhaa looking self-confident at the 2018 Isle of Man Masters (photo: John Saunders)
Like Gukesh, Prag seems unaffected by all the ballyhoo going on around him. Perhaps his mere appearance in the Isle of Man is testament to this, since he is already qualified for the Candidates’ tournament, showing he is simply keen to get the chance to cross swords with the elite. Of which he is now definitely a member, of course. Prag first played in the Isle of Man Masters in 2016 when he scored an excellent 5½/9 as an 11-year-old, beating a 2645-rated GM in the final round. He made the same score in the significantly stronger 2017 Isle of Man Masters, taking a point off David Howell along the way, then 5/9 in 2018. With a win against current world champion Ding Liren under his belt already, Prag must already be focused on the world championship crown.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave completes the list of the ten highest-rated starters in the 2023 Grand Swiss. As someone very close in age to Magnus Carlsen – the Frenchman is a month older than the Norwegian – it would be easy to argue that MVL’s opportunities of challenging for the world title had come and gone, but perhaps it is more a matter of motivation than age. Some excellent results in 2021 and 2022 (first in the Shenzhen Masters and the Bucharest Superbet Classic) suggest he is still a strong contender. He has been less successful than others at qualifying for Candidates’ tournaments, but when his chance came in 2020/2021, as a replacement after Radjabov withdrew, his challenge was the victim of force majeure. The first leg of the double-cycle tournament saw him defeat Ian Nepomniachtchi and thus share the lead with the Russian, a point clear of the field, but at that point, the tournament had to be suspended due to the Covid-19 outbreak. It was not resumed until a year later when MVL started with a loss to Caruana, after which he was unable to make up the leeway on Nepomniachtchi though still finishing second.
In 2023 MVL’s classical chess appearances have been in the Bundesliga, the Bucharest Superbet Classic (where he made a par score) and the FIDE World Cup, in which he was eliminated in round three by the 17-year-old Uzbek grandmaster Javokhir Sindarov, who is also in the Grand Swiss line-up.
Other top contenders
There is nothing to say that the winner of the Grand Swiss will come from the ten players featured above. That still leaves another 11 players rated over 2700 in the field who all have a realistic chance of doing well, not to mention the huge phalanx of players in the 2600 range. I’ll pick out a few names... Jan-Krzysztof Duda reached the 2022 Candidates’ final and will be keen to do so again. Yu Yangyi has been active in Sharjah, Dubai and Baku (where he went out to Etienne Bacrot in a play-off): perhaps surprisingly, he is the only Chinese-registered player in the Grand Swiss line-up. England will be pinning its hopes on Nikita Vitiugov, who will be playing his first major event under the aegis of his new federation.
Regarding the teenaged triumvirate mentioned above: you may feel that my arithmetic is awry there as there are some more teenagers sporting 2700+ ratings, namely Vincent Keymer (Germany, aged 19), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan, 19) and Arjun Erigaisi (India): OK, the latter is now 20 but only just. Like Gukesh, Erigaisi reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup, while Keymer went out to Carlsen in round four despite beating the former world champion in their first game. Abdusattorov suffered an early exit in the World Cup but performed well in the 2023 Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee tournament, leading with a round to go but then losing to Jorden van Foreest and being overtaken by Anish Giri.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan, playing Pavel Eljanov at the 2019 Grand Swiss (Photo: Maria Emelianova/chess.com)
Other young stars to look for, further down the rating list: Nihal Sarin (India, 19) is a few points short of the 2700 mark and has impressed in the Isle of Man on previous occasions, while Hans Niemann (USA, 20 in June) was 2708 as of last May but has since slipped to 2667. He’s been very active in 2023 but slipped in rating until an encouraging upswing in September saw him regain some points. At the time of writing Niemann is competing in the world junior championship in Mexico. We then have IM Ihor Samunenkov from Ukraine, who received a wild card for the event. The 14-year-old IM made headlines in 2021 when at the age of 12, he became the Ukrainian Champion! Currently rated 2515, Ihor is the world's number two among players under-14 after GM Abhimanyu Mishra, who is also taking part in the Grand Swiss. Mishra is just 14 years old but he’s been a grandmaster for two years already, having beaten Sergei Karjakin’s record for being the youngest player to qualify for the title. As of September 2023, his rating stands at 2599. He has surpassed rating performances of 2730+ twice in the past year so is on a similar trajectory to the other older teenagers in the field.
Then there is IM Ediz Gurel from Turkey – already a well-known face in the chess world who created a huge upset in the World Cup, beating the Serbian GM Velimir Ivic in just 28 moves. With an ELO of 2512, Gurel is the strongest 15-year-old in the world, rightfully receiving the wild card for the Grand Swiss where will be a difficult nut to crack for his opponents.
The established players taking part
The Grand Swiss is not just about the young stars, of course: some famous established stars will be doing battle too. For example, Alexei Shirov, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Boris Gelfand and the 2002 FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov are to be found in the list of competitors at numbers 46, 47, 51 and 64, respectively: all players who have either won the world title or else qualified for a world title match. It may seem incredible to see those numbers matched to those names, but it underlines the amazing strength in depth of the field.
A pensive Boris Gelfand at the 2019 Grand Swiss (photo: John Saunders)
Alongside the 100+ GMs, there are seven IMs and just one untitled player competing. A few pointers about those players... 18-year-old IM Elham Amar of Norway is being talked about as a major talent in the making, in a country which knows a thing or two about brilliant young players. England has a second player in the line-up, 14-year-old IM Shreyas Royal. ‘Shrez’ is the country’s great hope for the future, and recently enjoyed a close encounter with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as the announcement was made of a £500,000 investment in British chess over the next two years. Shrez chalked up his first GM norm last year at a younger age than David Howell, so much is expected of him.
The Isle of Man is itself represented in the Grand Swiss by IM Dietmar Kolbus and Li Wu. You’ll note that their names appear in the list of competitors with the designation ‘IOM’ as the Isle of Man is now an affiliate organisation of FIDE and treated as a federation in many respects. Both are strong players with good track records in domestic UK competitions – notably the 4NCL (Four Nations Chess League) a.k.a. the British Team Championship, which Manx Liberty have won for the past two seasons – but the opposition they face in the Grand Swiss will be, shall we say, challenging.
THE 2023 FIDE WOMEN’S GRAND SWISS
Alongside the (open) Grand Swiss is the 2023 FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss, being held for the second time after the inaugural event in 2021 in Riga. The field consists of 50 qualified and (in a few cases) nominated players.
Aleksandra Goryachkina, ranked third in the world after Hou Yifan and Ju Wenjun, is probably the favourite to win this tournament. Though the gap between her and the next group of players is not huge in rating terms, she is a little bit younger (at 25) and in good form having won the FIDE Women’s World Cup in August. There, her progress was smooth as far as the quarter-final where she needed rapid games to eliminate Harika Dronavalli. She then defeated former world champion Tan Zhongyi in the semi-final (partial revenge for being knocked out of the 2022/23 Candidates’ tournament by the Chinese player) before once again needing rapid games (and a bit of good fortune) to see off Nurgyul Salimova in the final. This success qualified her for the Candidates’ tournament, so a victory in the Isle of Man would be icing on the cake. Having said, she is in good form in terms of recent success, her rating has suffered a little since its peak at 2611 in May 2021. Though she gained some points in the Grand Prix event in New Delhi in May, she lost more in the (open) European Individual Championship in Serbia in April and also in the Cyprus Grand Prix tournament in June, where Dinara Wagner (Germany) was the surprise winner.
Aleksandra is coming to the Isle of Man fresh from winning FIDE Women’s World Cup (Photo: Maria Emelianova/chess.com)
Goryachkina’s closest rating rivals are all former women’s world champions. Alexandra Kosteniuk, ranked second in the line-up and seventh in the world, has switched federation from Russia to Switzerland this year. Having lost to Goryachkina in the 2022/2023 Candidates’ eliminator, she bounced back with victory in the Munich leg of the FIDE Grand Prix in March, then not so well in the Cyprus event before finishing first equal in the Cairns Cup in Saint Louis, USA, in July. In the 2023 FIDE World Cup she was surprisingly eliminated by Serbian IM Teodora Injac in the third round.
Tan Zhongyi is third-ranked player in the line-up in the 2023 FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss and currently ranked ninth in the world. Coming into 2023 following a comfortable win in the Chinese Women’s Championship, she then defeated Kateryna Lagno and Aleksandra Goryachkina in the quarter and semi-finals of the 2022/23 Candidates before being eliminated in the final by Lei Tingjie. She was mildly below par in the Munich Grand Prix but then suffered a defeat at the hands of Lei Tingjie in the Candidates’ final in May. Her World Cup aspirations were ended by Goryachkina in the semi-finals. She is the only Chinese player in the line-up, perhaps surprisingly for a country that has dominated women’s chess for so long.
Tan Zhongyi is only Chinese player in the 2023 FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss line-up (Photo: Timur Sattarov)
Ranked fourth and fifth in the Women’s Grand Swiss line-up are Ukrainian sisters Mariya and Anna Muzychuk, currently rated within seven points of each other. Both lost to Lei Tingjie in the Candidates’ eliminators. The two then went head-to-head in round four of the World Cup when elder sister Anna won through in a rapid play-off, proceeding eventually to the semi-final where she lost to Nurgyul Salimova. However, she then won a 3rd/4th place play-off against Tan Zhongyi to secure her place in the 2024 Candidates’ competition. Thus, the pressure is on Mariya Muzychuk to secure her place via the Grand Swiss as her rating lags behind Humpy Koneru, who is likely to receive the final Candidates’ place by dint of her position in the women’s rankings.
Those are the five highest-rated players but there are no fewer than ten other holders of the (full) GM title who might challenge them, not to mention a few other up-and-coming players. Close in rating to the Muzychuk sisters are Harika Dronavalli (India) and Polina Shuvalova (FIDE). The 19-year-old Kazakh IM Bibisara Assaubayeva is a rising player, as is the 24-year-old Kalmyk-born German WGM Dinara Wagner after her astonishing victory and full GM norm in the Nicosia leg of the Grand Prix in June (after finishing last in Munich previously), followed by another first place in the Dortmund Sparkassen tournament in the same month. Another player to follow will be Nurgyul Salimova, after her remarkable success in reaching the final of the World Cup, thus clinching a place in the 2024 Candidates. She is 27th in the Isle of Man rankings.
Harika Dronavalli was the top female scorer in the 2019 Grand Swiss: now there is a separate Women's Grand Swiss in which she is sixth seed (photo: John Saunders)
As well as Harika Dronavalli, India will be looking to Rameshbabu Vaishali, sister of Praggnanandhaa, and 21-year-old Agrawal Vantika to challenge for a high place. IM Tania Sachdev, so often with a microphone in her hand these days, will be back at the board in the Isle of Man, playing her first classical chess of 2023. Another young Indian player to look out for will be Shri B Savitha, a 16-year-old player already rated 2375 and with a world under-12 title to her name.
Other familiar faces in the line-up will be the evergreen Pia Cramling and former world champion Antoaneta Stefanova. Neither has been involved in Women’s World Championship or World Cup action recently, but they have still kept their hand in this year with some team chess and domestic events.
There is just the one US player in the field, but she is definitely one to watch. Alice Lee won’t turn 14 until a few days after the tournament but already holds the IM title and is just a few points short of 2400. After finishing 5th= in the 2022 US Women’s Championship, she’s been piling on the rating points in 2023, notably in a norm tournament in Saint Louis in January, and then the American Cup where she scored wins against Irina Krush, Nazi Paikidze and Atousa Pourkashiyan in coming second to the first-named in a rapid play-off. She completed her third IM norm during the 2023 Canadian Transnational Championship in June, beating two GMs and achieving a performance rating of 2531.