The second stop of the 2019 Grand Chess Tour and one of the first two classical events takes place from 26th June-8th July in Zagreb, Croatia.
The Mimara Museum in Zagreb hosted the opening ceremony, while the tournament games will be played at the historical Novinarski Dom building, permanent head office of the Croatian Journalists Association. The Opening ceremony of the event was attended by Prime Minister of Croatia, Mr. Plenkovic Andrej, Science and Education Minister, Blazenka Divjak, Culture Minister, Nina Obuljen Korzinek, Tourism Minister, Gari Cappelli, ECU President, Mr. Zurab Azmaiparashvili, the chess legend Garry Kasparov and the FIDE Vice President Mr. Michael Khodarkovsky.
On this occassion, Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, said: “In the days ahead Zagreb will be the world capital of chess. I hope this tournament has a positive effect on young people and I thank Garry Kasparov for helping ensure that it is held in Zagreb.”, and played an opening ceremonial game against World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen.
The participants of the Croatia Grand Chess Tour are: World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen (NOR), Viswanathan Anand (IND), Levon Aronian (ARM), Fabiano Caruana (USA), Ding Liren (CHN), Anish Giri (NED), Karjakin Sergey (RUS), Mamedyarov Shakhriyar (AZE), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS)- the winner of the first leg of the 2019 GCT, Wesley So (USA) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA).
The event will be played as a 11 rounds Robin round tournament, with classical time control, with a total prize fund of 325.000$. The first game starts today at 16:30 (local time) and LIVE broadcast is available through the official website of the event.
Opening Ceremony video: