Vidit Gujrathi faces Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura among his five first-day opponents while R. Praggnanandhaa’s list of early rivals include two-time winner on the Champions Tour, Wesley So, and Sergey Karjakin when the 16-player New in Chess Classic online rapid tournament opens on Saturday.
Vidit’s return coincides with Praggnanandhaa’s debut in the $1.5 million Tour as the two young Indians get ready to test their preparedness against some of the best names in the game.
For this event, Praggnanandhaa has prepared under former World champion Vladimir Kramnik, among others.
Black pieces start
On the first day of the three-day preliminary rounds, Vidit starts with black pieces and plays alternate colours against Aryan Tari (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Johan-Sebastian Christiansen, Carlsen (both Norway) and Nakamura (USA), in that order.
Praggnanandhaa, too, starts with black pieces against Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), followed by Gawain Jones (England), So (USA), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) and Karjakin (Russia).
After three days of league, the top eight finishers will advance to the quarterfinals. All matches can be followed live on chess24.com from 10.30 pm.
The delayed start is to minimise the clash of match-timings with the ongoing Candidates tournament.
The event concludes on May 2.
