The World Rapid Chess Championship 2019 (known as the King Salman World Rapid & Blitz Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a chess tournament held to determine the world champion in chess played under rapid time controls. Since 2012, FIDE has held the World Rapid and Blitz Championships at a joint tournament.
The event took place at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia between 26 and 28 December 2019, using a Swiss-system with 15 rounds for the open tournament and 12 rounds for the women's tournament. Players who were eligible to participate must have either been rated at least 2550 Elo in a FIDE rating list during 2019, or were a reigning national champion. The time control for the tournament was 15+10, meaning each player initially started with 15 minutes and gained 10 seconds increment with each move.
207 players took part in the open tournament, and 122 in the women's tournament.
The prize fund for both the open and women's tournament is shown below. In case of a tie (except for first place) all prize money was shared between the players. Players outside the brackets did not receive any prize money. All amounts are in USD.
Open tournament:
1st place: $60,000
2nd place: $50,000
3rd place: $40,000
4th place: $30,000
5th place: $25,000
6th place: $22,000
7th place: $18,000
8th place: $14,000
9th place: $11,000
10th place: $8,000
11thâÂÂ16th places: $5,000
17thâÂÂ25th places: $3,000
26thâÂÂ35th places: $1,500
Total: $350,000
Women's tournament:
1st place: $40,000
2nd place: $30,000
3rd place: $20,000
4th place: $15,000
5th place: $10,000
6th place: $7,000
7th place: $6,000
8th place: $5,000
9th place: $4,000
10th place: $3,000
11thâÂÂ15th places: $2,000
Total: $150,000
The opening ceremony took place on Wednesday 25 December. Start times are approximate as all matches in the previous round had to finish before the next round could commence. All times are CET.
The following table lists all participants, with the results from the 15 rounds. They are ranked according to the results, taking into account the tie-breaks.
Notation: "1 (W 56)" indicates a win (1 point) with white pieces (W) against player of rank 56 (Azamat Utegaliyev). The first tiebreak (labeled BC1) is the Buchholz Cut 1 score, the second tiebreak (labeled BS) is the Buchholz score, and the third tiebreak (labelled AROC1) is the average rating of opponents cut 1.
The following table lists all participants, with the results from the 17 rounds. They are ranked according to the results, taking into account the tie-breaks.
Notation: "1 (W 106)" indicates a win (1 point) with white pieces (W) against player of rank 106 (Margarita Potapova). The first tiebreak (labeled BC1) is the Buchholz Cut 1 score, the second tiebreak (labeled BS) is the Buchholz score, and the third tiebreak (labelled AROC1) is the average rating of opponents cut 1.