The World Cup is played in the Fairmont Hotel in Baku from September 10 to October 5. This is a knock-out event with 128 players, with a $1,280,000 prize fund. The two finalists of the World Cup also receive the right to play in the Candidates tournament.
Only the World Champion Magnus Carlsen and the former champion Vishy Anand are skipping the event in Baku. All other top grandmasters are present, including three players rated above 2800 - Veselin Topalov (2816), Hikaru Nakamura (2814), and Fabiano Caruana (2808).
Russia is represented by 22 players. The highest rated Russian players are Vladimir Kramnik (2777), Alexander Girschuk (2771), Sergey Karjakin (2762), and Evgeny Tomashevsky (2758).
Schedule:
Round 1 - September 11-13
Round 2 - September 14-16
Round 3 - September 17-19
Round 4 - September 20-22
Round 5 - September 23-25
Semifinals - September 27-29
Final - October 1-4
All games begin at 1 pm msk.
The prize money:
Winner - $96,000
Runner-Up - $64,000
Semifinalists - $40,000
Quarterfinalists - $28,000
Round 4 - $20,000
Round 3 - $12,800
Round 2 - $8,000
Round 1 - $4,800
The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes are added for the rest of the game, each move gives 30 bonus seconds.
Tie-break rules:
two rapid games 25+10,
two slow blitz games 10+10
two blitz games 5+3
Armageddon (a must-win game for White with time odds: 5 minutes against 4 minutes; 3 bonus seconds per move are added after the move 60).
Chief Arbiter - Faik Gasanov (Azerbaijan).
