FIDE Publishes World Cup Participants
Last Thursday, FIDE published the names of the 128 participants of the World Cup, next month in Baku, Azerbaijan. Of the top players only Carlsen and Anand are missing.
Below we give the full list, as taken from the official website.
Right after the names were published there was some confusion in the Twittersphere. GM Ian Rogers was the first to notice:
Baku World Cup pairings released and then apparently withdrawn. What is going on? pic.twitter.com/jHCtqVDeGJ
— Ian Rogers (@GMIanRogers) August 19, 2015
FIDE's Executive Director Nigel Freeman responded:
@GMIanRogers The full table will be up as soon as Elista have prepared it. We put up pairings as soon as confirmed by Chief Arbiter as info
— Nigel Freeman (@cadilly) August 20, 2015
GM Susan Polgar (or, as in most cases, her husband Paul Truong) reacted:
Anyone know the correct pairings for @baku_w_c_2015? It's Jorge and not Deysi who qualified. So Kramnik can't play Deysi in rd 1?
— Susan Polgar (@SusanPolgar) August 20, 2015
A few days later FIDE responded to the slight confusion. Not via Twitter, where the federation only posts links, but on its website again:
The list of World Cup Qualifiers and the Pairings on the website are correct.
The confusion seems to be because Jorge Cori won Zonal 2.4. and therefore qualified for the World Cup. He preferred to play in the World Junior, so his World Cup spot was taken by the player coming third in the Zonal, which happened to be his sister, Deysi Cori.
PARTICIPANTS of the WORLD CUP 2015
a) World Cup 2013 semi-finalists
01. V. Kramnik (RUS)
02. D. Andreikin (RUS)
03. M. Vachier-Lagrave (FRA)
04. E. Tomashevsky (RUS)
b) Women's World Champion 2014:
05. M. Muzychuk (UKR)
c) Junior World Champions 2013 & 2014:
06. Yu Yangyi (CHN)
07. Lu Shanglei (CHN)
d) From FIDE Rating List, average 2/2014 up to 1/2015:
08. L. Aronian (ARM) 2808.00
09. F. Caruana (USA) 2803.66
10. A. Grischuk (RUS) 2792.16
11. V. Topalov (BUL) 2784.50
12. H. Nakamura (USA) 2775.41
13. S. Karjakin (RUS) 2772.00
14. A. Giri (NED) 2756.91
15. S. Mamedyarov (AZE) 2755.33
16. B. Gelfand (ISR) 2752.00
17. L. Dominguez (CUB) 2750.25
18. Wesley So (USA) 2748.66
19. M. Adams (ENG) 2747.66
20. P. Svidler (RUS) 2747.41
21. N. Vitiugov (RUS) 2740.83
22. V. Ivanchuk (UKR) 2735.25
23. P. Leko (HUN) 2731.08
24. Ding Liren (CHN) 2726.50
25. Wang Hao (CHN) 2724.83
26. P. Harikrishna (IND) 2723.50
e) 46 players from European Championships 2014 & 2015
27. A. Motylev (RUS) 2014
28. D. Anton Guijarro (ESP) 2014
29. V. Fedoseev (RUS) 2014
30. D. Solak (TUR) 2014
31. P. Eljanov (UKR) 2014
32. C. Lupulescu (ROU) 2014
33. D. Navara (CZE) 2014
34. I. Saric (CRO) 2014
35. I. Lysyj (RUS) 2014
36. H. Melkumyan (ARM) 2014
37. R. Wojtaszek (POL) 2014
38. D. Jakovenko (RUS) 2014
39. V. Artemiev (RUS) 2014
40. I. Smirin (ISR) 2014
41. L. Fressinet (FRA) 2014
42. G. Sargissian (ARM) 2014
43. A. Areshchenko (UKR) 2014
44. M. Perunovic (SRB) 2014
45. I. Cheparinov (BUL) 2014
46. V. Iordachescu (MDA) 2014
47. S. Zhigalko (BLR) 2014
48. S. Ter-Sahakyan (ARM) 2014
49. C. Balogh (HUN) 2014
50. E. Najer (RUS) 2015
51. M. Bartel (POL) 2015
52. D. Khismatullin (RUS) 2015
53. Y. Vovk (UKR) 2015
54. A. Korobov (UKR) 2015
55. A. Ipatov (TUR) 2015
56. A. Volokitin (UKR) 2015
57. M. Matlakov (RUS) 2015
58. S. Sjugirov (RUS) 2015
59. A. Moiseenko (UKR) 2015
60. I. Iljiushenok (RUS) 2015
61. R. Kempinski (POL) 2015
62. I. Popov (RUS) 2015
63. V. Laznicka (CZE) 2015
64. M. Rodshtein (ISR) 2015
65. A. Brkic (CRO) 2015
66. L. Nisipeanu (GER) 2015
67. B. Grachev (RUS) 2015
68. T. Nabaty (ISR) 2015
69. E. Can (TUR) 2015
70. I. Nepomniachtchi (RUS) 2015
71. A. Goganov (RUS) 2015
72. I. Bukavshin (RUS) 2015
f) 20 players from Americas
73. A. Fier (BRA) Zonal 2.4
74. Deysi Cori (PER) Zonal 2.4
75. L. Bruzon (CUB) Zonal 2.3
76. E. Espinosa Veloz (CUB) Zonal 2.3
77. R. Robson (USA) Zonal 2.1
78. A. Onischuk (USA) Zonal 2.1
79. G. Kamsky (USA) Zonal 2.1
80. V. Akobian (USA) Zonal 2.1
81. S. Sevian (USA) Zonal 2.1
82. T. Krnan (CAN) Zonal 2.2
83. Granda Zuniga (PER) Continental 2014
84. S. Shankland (USA) Continental 2014
85. Ortiz Suarez (CUB) Continental 2014
86. R. Leitao (BRA) Continental 2014
87. Yuniesky Quesada Perez(CUB) Continental 2015
88. E. Iturrizaga Bonelli (VEN) Continental 2015
89. F. Perez Ponsa (ARG) Continental 2015
90. A. Kovalyov (CAN) Continental 2015
91. Sandro Mareco (ARG) Zonal 2.5
92. Henriquez Villarga (CHI) Zonal 2.5
g) 20 players from Asia/Oceania
93. Ganguly Surya Shekhar (IND) Continental 2015
94. Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (IND) Continental 2015
95. Zhou Jianchao (CHN) Continental 2015
96. Maghsoodloo Parham (IRI) Continental 2015
97. Lalith Babu M.R. (IND) Continental 2015
98. Le Quang Liem (VIE) Zonal 3.3
99. Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (VIE) Zonal 3.3
100. Sethuraman S.P. (IND) Zonal 3.7
101. Z. Rahman (BAN) Zonal 3.2
102. Wei Yi (CHN) Zonal 3.5
103. Zhao Jun (CHN) Zonal 3.5
104. B. Adhiban (IND) Continental 2014
105. Ni Hua (CHN) Continental 2014
106. R. Kasimdzhanov (UZB) Continental 2014
107. Wen Yang (CHN) Continental 2014
108. Salem A.R. Saleh (UAE) Continental 2014
109. M. Illingworth (AUS) Zonal 3.6
110. Idani Pouya (IRI) Zonal 3.1
111. R. Jumabayev (KAZ) Zonal 3.4
112. Y. Atabayev (TKM) Zonal 3.4
h) 6 players from Africa
113. Amin Bassem (EGY) Egypt
114. Ahmed Adly (EGY) Egypt
115. Amir Zaibi (TUN) Tunisia
116. Arthur Ssegwanyi (UGA) Uganda
117. Richmond Phiri (ZAM) Zambia
118. Adu Oladapo (NGR) Nigeria
i) 5 nominees of the FIDE President
119. Hou Yifan (CHN)
120. G. Guseinov (AZE)
121. I. Kovalenko (LAT)
122. M. Wiedenkeller (LUX)
123. E.Inarkiev (RUS)
j) 4 nominees of the local Organising Committee
124. R. Mamedov (AZE)
125. E. Safarli (AZE)
126. V. Durarbayli (AZE)
127. T. Radjabov (AZE)
k) 1 ACP Tour Qualifier
128. R. Edouard (FRA)
Total = 128 players
The pairings can be found in the offical pairings tree (in PDF here). Below the top 10 players are listed, and their first-round opponents:
Topalov, Veselin (BUL) - Adu, Oladapo (NGR)
Richmond Phiri (ZAM) - H. Nakamura (USA)
Caruana, Fabiano (USA) - Zaibi, Amir (TUN)
Ssegwanyi, Arthur (UGA) - Giri, Anish (NED)
So, Wesley (USA) - Maghsoodloo, Parham (IRI)
Cori T., Deysi (PER) - Kramnik, Vladimir (RUS)
Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) - Atabayev, Yusup (TKM)
Krnan, Tomas (CAN) - Ding, Liren (CHN)
Aronian, Levon (ARM) - Wiedenkeller, Michael (LUX)
Iljiushenok, Ilia (RUS) - Jakovenko, Dmitry (RUS)
Each round consists of two classical games and a rapid/blitz tiebreak, if needed, on the third day. The final consists of four classical games.
Both finalists will automatically be qualified for the 2016 Candidates’ Tournament.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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