Riyadh, December 27 – The five-day King Salman World Chess Championship began on December 26 at Riyadh’s Apex Convention Center. The event, which is being held in Saudi Arabia for the first time, will continue until December 30.
The first day of the five-day event saw rounds 1-5 of the Rapid category, while rounds 6-10 of the same category will be played today. On Thursday, rounds 11-15 will be played to mark the conclusion of this class. The Blitz category will begin on Friday with rounds 1-11.
The remaining rounds (12-21) of this category will be played on Saturday, when the closing ceremony will be held at 8.30pm. Among more than 200 players taking part in the event are the world champion Magnus Carlsen from Norway, the incumbent World Rapid and Blitz Champions Sergey Karjakin of Russia, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, world No. 2 Levon Aronian of Armenia, No. 3 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan and former World Champion Viswanathan Anand of India.
The championship offers a record total prize money of US$2,000,000 with the Open events carrying individual prize money of US$750,000 each. There will be 30 prizes for each event, with the first prize being $250,000 in the Open Section and $80,000 in the Women’s Section, all new records.
