I. Tournament’s system
The 1st ACP World Rapid Cup will feature a knock-out tournament with 16 participants. A series of individual matches will determine who will be the winner of the event. It will run through four stages:
– 1st round with all 16 participants;
– quarter-finals with the 8 winners of the 1st round matches;
– semi-finals with the 4 winners of the quarter-finals;
– final with the 2 winners of the semi-finals.
II. Matches
All matches from the 1st round to the final will consist of two rapid games. These two games will be played with the following time control: 20 minutes each at the start of the game with an increment of 5 seconds per move from move 1.
III. Tie-breaks
If a match ends in a draw (1-1), two additional blitz games will have to be played. The time control will be 3 minutes each at the start of the game with an increment of 2 seconds per move from move 1.
If this tie-break match again ends in a draw (1-1), a last game will have to be played. This final tie-break will consist of a single blitz game where White starts with 5 minutes and needs to win the game in order to win the match (sudden death game). Black, on his part, only needs a draw to win the match, but has only 4 minutes at the start of the game. This final tie-break game will be played without time increment.
IV. Drawing of lots and pairings
The drawing of lots will take place during the opening ceremony. Participants will be ranked according to the FIDE rating list of January 2007.
The two best rated players of this list will be the No1 and No2 seeds of the tournament. They will draw lots in order to determine which half of the pairing table they will top. They may obviously not play each other earlier than in the final.
Players rated 3 and 4 will then draw lots to determine which half they belong to. They may encounter the top-seed of their pool no earlier than in the semi-finals.
The same procedure will be followed with players No5 to No8, bearing in mind that in the first round, players seeded 1 – 8 will forcefully play against one of the players ranked 9 – 16.
Colours for the first round will also be drawn during the opening ceremony.
V. Prizes
The total prize fund of the event amounts to 136,000 USD. Prizes will be distributed as follows:
4,000 USD to each player eliminated in the 1st round;
6,000 USD to each player eliminated in the quarter-final;
10,000 USD to each player eliminated in the semi-final;
20,000 USD to the runner-up;
40,000 USD to the winner.
The 14 players who will therefore take part in the first ACP WRC are:
Alexander Morozevich (Russia), Peter Leko (Hungary), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Alexei Shirov (Spain), Etienne Bacrot (France), Sergey Rublevsky (Russia), Evgeny Bareev (Russia), Arkadij Naiditsch (Germany), Pentala Harikrishna (India), Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands), Victor Bologan (Moldova), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Farrukh Amonatov (Tajikistan).
In addition, on the proposal of Bank Pivdennyi, two Wild Cards are given to Vassily Ivanchuk (highest rated Ukrainian Grandmaster) and Ilia Smirin (Israel). Sixteen world level grandmasters will thus take part in this competition, which will be a knock-out tournament.
Source: ACP Official Site
“White starts with 5 minutes and needs to win the game in order to win the match (sudden death game). Black, on his part, only needs a draw to win the match, but has only 4 minutes at the start of the game. This final tie-break game will be played without time increment.”
I have meant to ask you a few times Susan about these kind of decider games. Do you think they favour white or black…… or put another way, which color would you rather have. Do you think its as fair as it can be?
When is this tournament? Go Hikaru!
We miss Judit and Vishy in that lineup :o)
Where is Anand? Without him a title like “world rapid cup” seems not worthy enough…
The Europeans don’t like Anand. ACP is Kramnik’s federation.
Anand was on the list and declined
Anand doesn’t want to support ACP jokesters like Kramnik.
Finally, Hikaru gets an invitation to a Rapid Championship. It is very much overdue.
I personally could not care less about Hikaru. I prefer Magnus Carlsen.
might be too long of time control for Naka…
and I don’t care for carlsen at all. overhyped.
Anand is a member of the ACP…
Kramnik was also qualified but he won’t play.
Anand is not playing due to close Wejk-an-See Super tournament, which begins in several days after ACP World Cup