Saint Louis, MO, March 12, 2019 – The Grand Chess Tour (GCT) has opted for a mix of youth and experience in selecting the six wildcards that will participate in the forthcoming rapid and blitz tournaments in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire and Paris, France. The following six players have accepted wildcard invitations and will showcase their talents alongside the seven full tour participants in each event.
| Event | Cote d’Ivoire Rapid & Blitz | Paris Rapid & Blitz |
| Date | May 6 – May 13 | July 26 – August 2 |
| 1 | Yi, Wei | Grischuk, Alexander |
| 2 | Topalov, Veselin | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof |
| 3 | Amin, Bassem | Dubov, Daniil |
The selections are consistent with the approach that will be adopted for all GCT events this year. While former FIDE World Champion GM Veselin Topalov and GM Alexander Grischuk are no strangers to the Tour, the other four wildcards will all be making their debut appearances at a GCT event.
GM’s Wei Yi, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Daniil Dubov represent the very best of a growing group of emerging junior players while GM Bassem Amin is the reigning African Individual Champion as well as the number one ranked player from the African continent. He will become the first player from Africa to participate in a GCT tournament when he participates in the tournament in Abidjan in May.
The full fields for these two rapid and blitz tournaments are now finalised and are as follows:
| # | Cote d’Ivoire Rapid & Blitz | Paris Rapid & Blitz |
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | Nakamura, Hikaru |
| 2 | Nakamura, Hikaru | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime |
| 3 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | Caruana, Fabiano |
| 4 | Ding, Liren | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar |
| 5 | So, Wesley | Nepomniachtchi, Ian |
| 6 | Nepomniachtchi, Ian | Giri, Anish |
| 7 | Karjakin, Sergey | Anand, Viswanathan |
| 8 | Yi, Wei | Grischuk, Alexander |
| 9 | Topalov, Veselin | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof |
| 10 | Amin, Bassem | Dubov, Daniil |
Both tournaments are sponsored by Vivendi SA, a French mass media conglomerate headquartered in Paris. In addition, the Paris Rapid and Blitz tournament also benefits from the support of Colliers International, a leading global real estate services and investment management company.
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ABOUT
Grand Chess Tour™
The Grand Chess Tour is a circuit of international events, each demonstrating the highest level of organization for the world's best players. The Tour was created in partnership between the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (Sinquefield Cup) and Chess Promotions, Ltd. (London Chess Classic). The legendary Garry Kasparov, one of the world's greatest ambassadors for chess, inspired the Grand Chess Tour and helped solidify the partnership between the organizers. — grandchesstour.org
URS™
The Universal Rating System (URS™), is a revolutionary new sport’s rating system designed to assess the relative strength of participants across a wide variety of competitor vs competitor sports or games. The URS™ was developed as the result of a collaborative research project funded by the Grand Chess Tour, the Kasparov Chess Foundation and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. The system is the product of detailed research conducted over more than two years by some of the world’s leading experts in methods of rating chess players. — universalrating.com
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