24 November 2017

Participants of Nutcracker Generation Tournament Announced

The event to take place in Moscow, December 18-24 

A traditional Christmas event – Nutcracker Generation Tournament – will be held on December 18-24 at the Central Chess Club in Moscow. Like a year ago, there will be two Scheveningen matches: Kings vs. Princes and Queens vs. Princesses.  

The line-up of the Kings:  Challenger for the World Chess Championship 2012 Boris Gelfand (Israel), World №4 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), winner of the final Candidates Match 1999 Alexei Shirov (Latvia), and Russian Champion 2005, head coach of the Russia women’s national chess team Sergei Rublevsky (Russia). 

The team of Princes will be represented by the leading young Russian players: winner of the Russian Championship Higher League 2016 Grigoriy Oparin, Russian blitz champion Vladislav Artemiev, the youngest grandmaster of Russia Andrey Esipenko, and winner and prize-winner of many international tournaments Daniil Yuffa. 

Queens: Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, Galina Strutinskaia, Elena Zaiatz, and Tatiana Grabuzova.  

Princesses: Aleksandra Maltsevskaya, Elizaveta Solozhenkina, Ekaterina Goltseva, and  Aleksandra Dimitrova. 

Each event is a double-round Scheveningen. Each team member will play three games against each player from the opposing team – one in classical chess and two in rapid chess.

The opening ceremony will take place on December 18. Playing days: December 19-22 (classical chess), December 23-24 (rapid chess).   

Classical games cost 2 points for a win and 1 point for a draw, for rapid games the scores are halved. In case of a tie, the places will be determined by the highest number of points scored by a team’s participants in classical event. 

The organizers: RCF, Chess Creativity Support Foundation, and an entrepreneur Oleg Skvortsov.

Chief Arbiter - IA Alexander Tkachev (Russia). 

Chairman of the Appeals Committe - IM Vladimir Barsky (Russia). 

Tournament Director – IO Mark Glukhovsky (Russia).

There will be online and video broadcast of the games with the commentary of the leading grandmasters on the website of the Russian Chess Federation. Everybody can visit the tournament and listen to the live commentaries. Free entrance. 

The winning teams will receive prize money and the trophy. The best player (classical chess + rapid) will receive special prizes. There are also special prizes set for the best creative achievements. 

Photos by Vladimir Barsky