The Chess World Cup 2021 was a 206-player single-eliminationchess tournament that took place in Sochi, Russia, beginning 12 July and ending 6 August 2021.[1] It was the 9th edition of the Chess World Cup. The winner of this tournament was the Polish grandmaster Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who won without losing any games either in classical chess or in the rapid tiebreakers.[2]
The tournament was an 8-round knockout event, with the top 50 seeds given a bye directly into the second round. The losers of the two semi-finals played a match for third place.
The two finalists, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Sergey Karjakin qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2022, which is a tournament to decide the next challenger for the World Championship. Moreover, all quarter-finalists, except for World Champion Magnus Carlsen, qualified for the FIDE Grand Prix 2022, giving them another chance to qualify for the Candidates.
Each round consisted of classical time limit games on the first two days, plus tie-breaks on the third day if required. The time limits were as follows:
Two classical time limit games: 90 minutes, plus a 30-minute increment on move 40, plus a 30-second increment per move from move 1, per player.
If the match was tied after the classical games, players played two rapid chess games, with 25 minutes plus a 10-second increment per move, per player.
If the match was still tied, players then played two more rapid chess games, with 10 minutes plus a 10-second increment per move, per player.
If the match was still tied, players then played two blitz games, with 5 minutes plus a 3-second increment per move, per player.
If the match was still tied, a single armageddon chess game was played to decide the match, with draw odds to Black, meaning White had to win but Black only needed to draw or win, to win the match. The players drew lots and the winner of the draw chose their color. White received 5 minutes, Black received 4 minutes, and each player received an extra 2 seconds per move beginning at move 61.
Schedule
Each round lasted three days: two for classical time limit games and a third, if necessary, for tie-breaks. Rounds 1 to 3 ran from July 12 to 20; July 21 was a rest day; Rounds 4 to 6 ran from July 22 to 30; July 31 was a rest day; and the last two rounds ran from August 1 to 6.
Play began at 3:00pm local time (12:00 UTC) on all days.[1]
Prize money
The total prize fund was US$1,892,500, with the first prize of US$110,000.[3]
Prize money in US dollars
Round
Prizes
Total
Round 1
78 × 3,750
292,500
Round 2
64 × 6,000
384,000
Round 3
32 × 10,000
320,000
Round 4
16 × 16,000
256,000
Round 5
8 × 25,000
200,000
Round 6
4 × 35,000
140,000
4th place
1 × 50,000
50,000
3rd place
1 × 60,000
60,000
Runner-up
1 × 80,000
80,000
Winner
1 × 110,000
110,000
Total
1,892,500
Media
IM Eric Rosen was one of the official photographers for the event.[4]
Participants
The following is the list of participants.[5][6] Players were seeded by their FIDE rating of June 2021, and all players were grandmasters unless indicated otherwise.
Click on the seed number of a player to go to their draw section.
The 13 highest-rated players from the average of 12 rating lists, from July 2020 to June 2021 (R)
91 federations spots selected according to the average rating of their 10 highest rated players (FN).
4 nominees of the FIDE President (PN)
2 nominees of the organizer (ON)
The participants were seeded by their FIDE rating of June 2021. For the first time, a hybrid format of online chess under arbiter supervision was allowed to be a part of the qualification process, due to the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in organizing over the board competition.[7][8]
Replacements
The following are the players from the list of qualifiers[5] who declined to play, and their replacements:
Ding Liren(CHN) (WC) → Anton Korobov(UKR) (R). Ding Liren did not play because of China's COVID-19 travel restrictions, and also because he was committed to playing in a Chinese tournament.[9]
Temur Kuybokarov(AUS) (Z3.6) → Elmer Prudente(GUM) (Z3.6). Kuybokarov withdrew due to Australian travel restrictions due to COVID-19.[14]
Huang Renjie(CHN) (Z3.5) → an extra presidential nominee (PN)
Bai Jinshi(CHN) (Z3.5) → an extra presidential nominee (PN)
In addition, six federations (Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Japan, South Korea, Peru, Vietnam) did not nominate a player. Because of this and the two Zone 3.5 withdrawals, the number of presidential nominees (PN) increased from four to twelve, with the eight extra being:[15][5]
^Aronian forfeited both games for health-related reasons.[16]
^Caruana won the first game by forfeit, after Megaranto's COVID-19 test was confirmed as positive, 15 moves into the first game.[17] As a result, Megaranto was forced to forfeit the second game. FIDE confirmed a mid-game forfeit had occurred, but did not name the player, citing "privacy regulations".[18]
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