Grand Chess Tour 2020 features five events: two classical and three rapid and blitz tournaments, which will be held mainly in European cities . Three events will take place in: Bucharest, Romania, Paris, France, Zagreb, Croatia, while two events will take place in Saint Louis, Missouri USA.
Due to busy chess calendar in 2020, the 6th edition of Grand Chess Tour will not have “GCT Finals” as in 2019 and the final tour standings will be based on the GCT points accumulated by the participants over the course of the five tournaments.
The full schedule for the 2020 series includes :
- Superbet Chess Classic Romania: May 3 – 16, 2020, Bucharest, Romania
- Paris Grand Chess Tour: June 22 – 29, 2020, Paris, France
- Croatia Grand Chess Tour: July 2 – 9, 2020, Zagreb, Croatia
- Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz: August 22 – 31, 2020, Saint Louis, Missouri USA
- Sinquefield Cup: August 29 – September 11, 2020, Saint Louis, Missouri USA
The following ten players signed full tour contracts for the 2020 season:
- Carlsen Magnus (NOR, 2872), World #1
- Caruana Fabiano (USA, 2822), World #2
- Ding Liren (CHN, 2805), World #3
- Grischuk Alexander (RUS, 2777), World #4
- Nepomniachtchi Ian (RUS, 2774), World #5
- Aronian Levon (ARM, 2773), World #6
- Vachier-Lagrave Maxime (FRA, 2770), World #7
- Giri Anish (NED, 2768), World #9
- So Wesley (USA, 2765), World #10
- Nakamura Hikaru (USA, 2736), World #21
Tour participants will compete for a total prize fund of 1.275.000 USD. The prize money for the two classical tournaments will be $325,000 per event while the prize fund for the rapid and blitz tournaments will be $150,000 each.
Photographs from: GCT 2019