17 August 2018
Sinquefield Cup Begins in Saint Louis
World strongest players participate.
Photo: Lennart Ootes
The fourth stage of the Grand Chess Tour is held in Saint Louis on August 17-28.
The line-up: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2842), Fabiano Caruana (USA, 2822), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 2801), Wesley So (USA, 2780), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France, 2779), Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2777), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2773), Viswanathan Anand (India, 2768), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2767), and Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2766).
Time control: 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes for the remainder of the game with a 30 second delay per move from move 1.
The match days: August 18-22 and 24-27. August 23 is the tournament's free day. The rounds start at 9 p.m. (Moscow time).
Round 1 pairings:
Aronian – Karjakin, Vachier-Lagrave – Carlsen, Nakamura – Anand, Mamedyarov – So, Caruana – Grischuk.
After the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz event, Hikaru Nakamura has taken the lead in the 2018 Grand Chess Tour series with 33 points. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is second with 25 points, while Sergey Karjakin is second with 24 points.
Top 4 GCT participants will play in the final tournament in London (December, 2018).
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