Tbilisi Grand Prix Starts Sunday
The third Grand Prix tournament of the 2014-2015 cycle opens Saturday and commences play on Sunday in Tbilisi, Georgia, and features the following players:
- Alexander Grischuk (2810)
- Anish Giri (2797)
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2775)
- Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2759)
- Peter Svidler (2739)
- Dmitry Andreikin (2737)
- Dmitry Jakovenko (2733)
- Teimour Radjabov (2731)
- Lenier Dominguez Perez (2726)
- Evgeny Tomashevsky (2716)
- Rustam Kasimdzhanov (2705)
- Baadur Jobava (2696)
The top two finishers in the overall Grand Prix automatically qualify for the next Candidates' event, and right now those spots are held by Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. Dmitry Andreikin is a relatively close third, however, and a big result here would give him a decent chance to qualify. Andreikin will not play in the final Grand Prix event (scheduled for Khanty-Mansiysk this May) while Caruana and Nakamura will be there. Also, Grischuk, Svidler and Tomashevsky scored as many points as Nakamura did in the Baku Grand Prix while skipping Tashkent; they too could conceivably equal or surpass Nakamura or even Caruana with a sufficiently strong performance in this tournament. The Candidates' spots are very much up for grabs! (More Grand Prix details and stats here.)