The FIDE World Cup 2021 and FIDE Women’s World Cup 2021 open today in Sochi, Russia. The events will be simultaneously played in a knockout system.
206 players will participate in the Open event and 103 participants in Women’s World Cup. Not only that this year the list of participants is extended, but FIDE World Cup 2021 features a record prize fund of 1.9 million dollars for Open and 676.000 dollars for Women’s event.
The FIDE World Cup battlefield is led by reigning World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen (NOR, 2847) who joined the race for the title of World Cup Champion. He is followed by Fabiano Caruana (USA, 2806), Levon Aronian (ARM, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (RUS, 2778), Anish Giri (NED, 2776), Alireza Firouzja (FRA, 2759) and others.
The top seeds of Women’s Championship are: Aleksandra Goryachkina (RUS, 2596), Kateryna Lagno (RUS, 2559), Mariya Muzychuk (UKR, 2550), ANna Muzychuk (UKR, 2535), Dzagnidze Nana (GEO, 2523), Harika Dronavalli (IND, 2515) and others.
List of participants and pairings trees can be found here.
The Opening ceremony of the events starts today from 18:00 (local time), while the games kick off tomorrow, starting from 15:00 (local time).