Magnus Carlsen To Face Tigran Petrosian In Chess.com Match

The reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen will face a grandmaster named for a former world champion in the next Chess.com GM Blitz Battle on June 23.

GM Tigran L. Petrosian of Armenia bested a field of 99 players in a $5,000 blitz tournament on Tuesday, qualifying to face Carlsen this month.

Carlsen and seven other top chess masters make the first Chess.com GM Blitz Battle Championship the strongest chess tournament ever held on the Internet.

The 2016 Chess.com GM Blitz Battle Championship is a bracket-style competition with seven online matches starting in April and culminating with the final in December. The total prize pool is $40,000.

Each round, two of the best chess players in the world will play three hours of blitz and bullet chess in a knockout match, with the winner advancing to the next round.

The tournament bracket includes the world’s top four blitz players and the top two American grandmasters:

1. Magnus Carlsen (Norway)

2. Hikaru Nakamura (USA)

3. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France)

4. Alexander Grischuk (Russia)

5. Levon Aronian (Armenia)

6. Fabiano Caruana (USA)

7. Pentala Harikrishna (India)

8. Tigran L. Petrosian (Armenia)

Nakamura, Vachier-Lagrave, and Grischuk have already won their first-round matches on Chess.com to advance to the final four of the bracket. The winner of the Carlsen-Petrosian match on June 23 will face Alexander Grischuk in round two.

The American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura will next play France’s number-one grandmaster, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Chess.com is broadcasting all matches live with grandmaster commentary on Chess.com/TV and Twitch.tv/chess.

“This was an unprecedented event in the history of chess,” said Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest about the qualifier tournament on May 31. “Never before were so many strong grandmasters participating in one online tournament.”

A high-resolution image of the full bracket is available for use:

— https://goo.gl/sEnFza (bracket image)

For more information, prizes, artwork, and player profiles, please visit:

— https://go o.gl/DGkYiS (announcement article)

— https://goo.gl/RXqOCs (Carlsen image)

— https://goo.gl/0Qmphk (Carlsen vs Petrosian image)

All artwork and player profiles are available for use in your publication.

Chess.com is the world’s largest chess website, with 14 million members who have played more than 1.2 billion chess games.

Contact:

International Master Daniel Rensch

Vice President of Content and Professional Relations, Chess.com

e-mail: Danny@Chess.com