Aravindh Chithambaram leads the Masters in 30th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival
The 30th edition of the Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival is here! This esteemed chess festival consisting of several different tournaments including a very strong Masters event will take place from 14th-25th August 2024 at Abu Dhabi. As announced in the closing ceremony of the last edition, the prize for the winner of Abu Dhabi Masters 2024 is USD 30,000! The total prize fund for the Chess Festival is a huge USD 107,650. The top seed of the tournament is none other than the latest Indian entrant at the 2700 Club - GM Aravindh Chithambaram! A total of 14 different chess events will take place in the festival. Read this article for all the details. Photo: Aditya Sur Roy, Abu Dhabi Chess Festival
The 30th edition of one of the strongest Chess tournaments in the World
The 1st edition of the Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival took place back in 1991. Emirati International Master Saeed Ahmed Saeed (2435) was the Champion of the first edition! 29 more editions of this prestigious tournament have taken place since then. Although the defending Champion of the Masters event, Vladimir Fedoseev is missing from the lineup this year, there are a huge number of strong players taking part!
There are a total of 14 different Chess tournaments taking place in the Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival this year from 14th-25th August, 2024. The major attraction is of course the very strong Masters tournament, which has a total of 187 players taking part! More than half of the participants are from India - a total of 85 players from India are taking part in the Masters event. No less than 48 Grandmasters will be playing, and many more titled players! Over 2000 registrations have been done, and there are 1000 confirmed participants so far. Players from more than 60 countries are taking part!
The top 6 Indian seeds of the Abu Dhabi Masters 2024. L to R: GM Aravindh Chithambaram (2703), GM SL Narayanan (2648), GM Raunak Sadhwani (2644), GM Abhimanyu Puranik (2634), GM Aryan Chopra (2632), and GM Pranav V (2620). Photos: Aditya Sur Roy, Niklesh Jain.
Check out the complete players list of the Masters section
Venue
There are two official hotels available - The St. Regis Abu Dhabi Corniche ( 5 star) and Radisson Blu Abu Dhabi Corniche ( 5 star). The Masters tournament and Open A event will take place at St. Regis, and all the other events will take place at Radisson Blu. The players can chose any of these two hotels for accomodation! It is expected that the total player count will go beyond 2000 across all 14 events.
Various events, Prize money, and Eligibility:
There are a total of 14 events taking place across the span of the 30th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival - from 14th to 25th August. Here's a brief description about all of the events:
There is an special online event planned as well - the Abu Dhabi Masters Online on 21st August! There is an attractive prize fund of USD 10,000, open for all titled players. Check out the image below for detailed information for the Online events and the Blitz arena for all players.
There is one rest day for the Masters event after the 2nd round, but there are no rest days for any of the other events. Here's the schedule of the entire proceedings:
The total prize fund for the 30th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival is a massive 107, 650 USD. Following are the details of the Prize money structure spread across the 14 events to be held throughout the festival. All the prize money amounts are in US Dollars.
How to register for the tournament?
The tournament registrations will be closed on 15th July 2024. You can go and register for the tournament at this link. Here's what the tournament registration page looks like:
There are various entry fees for various events. Check out all the details regarding entry fees and registration below:
Important links:
Full players list of all events