The 2016 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships (Open and Women) will take place in Doha, Qatar, from 25th of December (arrival) to 31st of December (departure).
The Rapid event will be held over three days (26-28th December) at a time control of 15min+10s and the Blitz Championships will continue during next two days (29-30th December) at a time control of 3min+2s.
The events will be both Swiss pairings tournaments and will be held over two days for Blitz and three days for Rapid. The Blitz will have twenty one (21) rounds in open championship and seventeen (17) rounds in women’s championship, with a single game for each round, Swiss event.
The Rapid will be fifteen (15) rounds for Open and twelve (12) rounds for Women’s championship, with a single game for each round, Swiss event.
The total prize fund for the Open tournament is $400,000 with $40,000 for the winner of each championship and $80,000 in Women Championships with $10,000 for the winner of each championship.
Both participants the FIDE World Championship Match World Champion Magnus Carlsen and the challenger Sergey Karjakin, former World Champion Viswanathan Anand, World Blitz Champions of different years Alexander Grischuk (2006, 2012, 2015), Vassily Ivanchuk (2007), Leinier Dominguez (2008), Levon Aronian (2010), World Rapid Champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2013) and other top players have confirmed their participation.
Former Women’s World Champions Alexandra Kosteniuk, Antoaneta Stefanova, Anna Ushenina, Zhu Chen, Women’s World Rapid Champion of 2014 and Women’s World Blitz Champion (2010) Kateryna Lagno, Women’s World Blitz Champion of 2014 Anna Muzychuk, Women’s World Blitz Champion of 2012 Valentina Gunina, who recently has shown a remarkable result in the Super Rapidplay tournament of the 2016 London Chess Classic, the winner of the FIDE Grand Prix Series Ju Wenjun and other top players are among the participants.
The full list of participants.
The World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships are organized by the FIDE, QATAR OLYMPIC COMMITTEE and QATAR CHESS ASSOCIATION.
In recent years, Qatar has proved an exceptional ability and outstanding facilities to host hundreds of international and regional sports events. In the coming few years, Qatar will be hosting many world class events along with the UCI RWC 2016; such as World Bowling Championships 2016, World Artistic Gymnastics Championships 2018, Athletics World Championships 2019, and FIFA World Cup 2022.