Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz Starts Tuesday

The 2020 Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz kicks off Tuesday, September 15 at 1:00pm Central, featuring ten of the finest speed players the world has to offer.

World Champion GM Magnus Carlsen headlines the event, with the U.S. represented by GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Leinier Dominguez and Jeffrey Xiong. Rounding out the list are Russian GMs Ian Nepomniachtchi and Alexander Grischuk, Armenian GM Levon Aronian, Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna and GM Alireza Firouzja.

Generally a highlight for the larger Grand Chess Tour, which was canceled for 2020 due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the Rapid and Blitz event was salvaged as part of a dual bill of online tournaments put on by the Saint Louis Chess Club in September. The Champions Showdown: Chess 9LX, which featured legendary GM Garry Kasparov battling Carlsen and other world elites in the Fischer Random variant, wrapped up over the weekend.

Now falling back to the traditional rules of chess -- albeit with a bit more haste -- the ten super-GMs will play 27 games across the next 5 days. The rapid portion (G/25+5) will be played round robin, featuring three games over each of the next three days, while blitz games will close out the event in a double round robin format. Each GM will play nine blitz games (G/5+3) on both Friday and Saturday.

The Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz event will deal out $250,000 in prizes, with first place bagging $50,000. Cumulative scores will be tallied awarding two points for each rapid victory and one point for a rapid draw; blitz games will count as one point per win, and ½ point for each draw.

Games will begin each day at 1:00pm Central and include expert commentary by GMs Yasser Seirawan and Maurice Ashley, and WGM Jennifer Shahade. Viewers can watch live on uschesschamps.com or on the Saint Louis Chess Club’s YouTube and TwitchTV channels.