ALTIBOX NORWAY CHESS 2017 STARTS

The fifth edition of Altibox Norway Chess, one of the strongest world tournaments, starts tomorrow in Stavanger/Norway. Before the main event, a blitz tournament takes place today.

stavanger

The event features 10 of the world top 12 chess players: #1 Carlsen Magnus (NOR 2832), #2 Wesley So (USA 2812), #3 Vladimir Kramnik (RUS 2808),  #4 Caruana Fabiano (USA 2808), #6 Vachier-Lagrave Maxime (FRA 2796), #7 Aronian Levon (ARM 2793), #8 Viswanathan Anand (IND 2786), #9 Hikaru Nakamura (USA 2785), #11 Karjakin Sergey (RUS 2781) and #12 Anish Giri (NED 2771).

norway-2017

Blitz tournament starts today at 6pm (local time) in Clarion Hotel Air. The winner of the blitz tournament will choose his starting number for the main tournament. The blitz tournament will be played in a Round Robin system in 9 rounds, with time control 3 min+2 seconds increment for each move. Prize fund for the blitz tournament is 11.600EUR.

The main event starts tomorrow. The main event consist of 9 rounds played according to Round Robin system, with time control 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then each player will be allotted 15 minutes after the second time control; an increment of 30 seconds per move will be allotted from move 61 onwards. Total prize fund for the main event will be huge 249.000EUR. In case of sharing the first place, players will be playing a 2 blitz game match with time control 3 min+2 seconds increment for each move and if this match ends tie, Armageddon game will decide who is taking the first place and 70.000EUR.

The playing venue will be mainly Clarion Hotel Energy, except for rounds 7,8 and 9, when playing hall will be located in Stavanger Concert Hall.

All the games will have live transmission and live comments. The commentators will be Nigel Short and Dirk Jan Ten Geuzendam.

Official tournament website