In a first, two young Indians — Vidit Gujrathi and R. Praggnanandhaa — will be part of a field headed by World champion Magnus Carlsen when the $100,000 New in Chess Classic online event begins on April 24.
Vidit returns to the $1.5 million Meltwater Champions Tour as one of the nine wild-cards in the 16-player field while Praggnanandhaa gains playing rights as the winner of the recent Polgar Challenge rapid event.
Praggnanandhaa, 15, last faced an elite field in November 2018 when he was included in the blitz section of the Tata Steel event in Kolkata. As a result of the large number of wild-cards, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Leinier Dominuez (USA), Sergey Karjakin (Rus), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), Vidit, Liem Quang Le (Vietnam), Gawain Jones (England), Aryan Tari and Johan-Sebastian Christiansen (both Norway) have made it.
Iranian Alireza Fiouzja, 17, playing under the FIDE flag, was voted to be part of the field by premier members of the official broadcast partner, chess24.com after Daniil Dubov opted out to honour his commitment to do commentary during the Candidates Tournament.
Carlsen (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Wesley So (USA), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan) and Hikaru Nakamura (USA) qualified as the top-eight players as per the Tour standings after four events.
