St. Louis, Oct 26: World Champion D Gukesh will have his task cut out against the strongest ever field in the $412000 Clutch Chess Champions showdown that gets underway here.
Almost rushing to another continent from Europe after leading his team Super Chess to a fantastic win in the European Club Cup, Gukesh will face the top three ranked players in the world over 18 games to be played under rapid chess format at the newly designed facility here at the St. Louis Chess Club.
World number one since 2011, Magnus Carlsen’s break ends after becoming a proud father recently and the world number one will yet again start as the favourite ahead of the American duo of Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.
The second addition of the Clutch Chess within a fortnight will have the winner taking the lion’s share of the prize fund becoming richer by $120000. The second prize is $90000 while the third and fourth are $70000 and $60000 respectively. There is also an additional $72000 at stake for every victory scored in each round. In case of draws, the prize money will be added to the overall winner’s kitty.
A brainchild of Grandmaster Maurice Ashley, the clutch chess will see increased stakes on each day. Any victory scored on day one will be worth one point while on day two it will be two points and on the final day there will be three points for every win registered. Likewise, the prize pool reserved for games will also increase on each day. (PTI)
