Dubai: Defending champion Gawain Jones will try to be the first player to win back-to-back titles as he competes against more than 200 players from 43 countries in the 19th edition of the Dubai Open Chess Tournament -- Shaikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup on April 3-12 at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.
The British grandmaster (GM), who also won the Dubai Open Blitz Tournament last year, will meet stiff competition from more than 40 grandmasters, including nearly 20 with an International Chess Federation (Fide) rating of over 2600.
Ukraine’s GM Anton Korobov is the tournament’s top-seed with a Fide rating of (2694), while Jones (2676) is seeded fifth, behind the Ukraine’s Alexander Areshchenko (2682), Azerbaijan’s Eltaj Safarli (2680) and Spain’s David Anton Guijaro (2676).
Also taking part this year are five other former Dubai Open champions — Alexandr Rakhmanov of Russia (2013), Abhijeet Gupta of India (2011), Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela (2010), Tigran Kotanjian of Armenia (2009) and Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia (2007).
Fide Master (FM) Saeed Ishaq and young standout International Master (IM) Ibrahim Sultan will lead the local contingent as both seek to bolster their respective bid to become the UAE’s next grandmaster.
“We are very pleased to have such an elite cast competing this year,” said Ibrahim Al Bannai, chairman of the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.
“We again expect exciting and interesting battles as chess fans from all over the world will be keenly following the games live online. The Dubai Open Chess Tournament has been the Middle East’s longest-running chess spectacle and we are constantly working on various innovations to make the event even more appealing to the world’s best players and to the global chess community.”
India will again have the biggest delegation in the nine-round Swiss system tournament with 92 players competing, led by GM Murali Karthikeyan, who is only 17-years-old but is already a two-time national champion of India. Apart from the UAE, the Arab region is also well-represented with players from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Sudan.
Organized under the patronage of Shaikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the tournament offers a total prize fund of US$54,000, including US$4,000 for the Dubai Open Blitz Tournament, which will be held on April 7.
The champion will be awarded custody of the Shaikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup and a cash prize of US$13,000.
The rest of the top 15 players will also receive cash prizes. Special prizes will also be awarded to the best female, best Dubai player, best UAE player, best Arab player and the top scorers in the 2301-2400, 2201-2300, 2101-2200, 2001-2100 and 2000-below rating categories.
The tournament games will be broadcast on the Dubai Chess and Culture Club’s website (www.dubaichess.ae) and other leading chess websites such as Chess24 and Chessbase, but with a 15-minute delay in accordance with the anti-cheating regulations of Fide, according to International Arbiter (IA) Mahdi Abdul Rahim, who will serve as the tournament’s chief arbiter. IA Saeed Yousuf Shakari serves as the tournament director.
