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FIDE Grand Swiss (2021) The 2nd FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss was an 11-round Swiss tournament held at the Hanzas Perons Cultural Centre in Riga, Latvia, 27 October - 7 November 2021. Rest day: 2 November. The two best players would qualify for the next Candidates tournament. Tiebreaks (Buchholz) would decide the placings in the event of ties. Players received 100 minutes for 40 moves followed by 50 more minutes for the next 20 moves, then 15 more minutes to the end of the game, with 30 seconds added per move starting from move 1. Prize fund: USD 425,000, with USD 70,000 for first place. Rounds started at 2 pm local time. Tournament director: Egons Lavendelis. Chief arbiter: Alex Holowczak. Number of games played: 594. Alireza Firouzja won with 8/11. He and Fabiano Caruana (2nd on tiebreak ahead of Oparin) qualified for the World Championship Candidates (2022) tournament. Oparin, Yu Yangyi, Keymer, Vachier-Lagrave, Predke and Shirov qualified for the 2022 Grand Prix tournament series. Official site: https://grandswiss.fide.com/ Regulations: https://handbook.fide.com/files/han... Chess-Results: https://chess-results.com/tnr587230... Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/news/view/ali... ChessBase: https://en.chessbase.com/post/grand... Chess24: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-t... TWIC: https://theweekinchess.com/chessnew... Ruchess: https://ruchess.ru/en/news/all/alir... FIDE: https://ratings.fide.com/tournament... Wikipedia article: FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2021 Previous: Isle of Man Grand Swiss (2019). See also FIDE Grand Swiss Women (2021)  page 2 of 24; games 26-50 of 594  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 26. Gelfand vs D Kollars 0-1 62 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss A28 English 27. B Adhiban vs S P Sethuraman   ½-½ 70 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss C42 Petrov Defense 28. M Antipov vs A Predke 0-1 44 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss C77 Ruy Lopez 29. G Sargissian vs R Praggnanandhaa   ½-½ 44 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss E49 Nimzo-Indian, 4.e3, Botvinnik System 30. N Grandelius vs Indjic   ½-½ 42 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss C42 Petrov Defense 31. P Ponkratov vs Zvjaginsev 1-0 38 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss C11 French 32. C Henriquez Villagra vs Shirov ½-½ 45 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss A48 King's Indian 33. D Anton Guijarro vs S Ter-Sahakyan   ½-½ 37 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss D37 Queen's Gambit Declined 34. V Ivic vs D Howell   0-1 45 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss C65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense 35. R Jumabayev vs M Petrosyan 0-1 48 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss E03 Catalan, Open 36. A Adly vs A Rakhmanov   ½-½ 56 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss D79 Neo-Grunfeld, 6.O-O, Main line 37. M Bartel vs E Najer   ½-½ 55 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss B30 Sicilian 38. G Oparin vs Sindarov   ½-½ 50 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss D80 Grunfeld 39. Jobava vs Sevian   ½-½ 42 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss A28 English 40. N Sarin vs K Georgiev 1-0 36 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss D02 Queen's Pawn Game 41. H S Gretarsson vs A Volokitin   ½-½ 49 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss B47 Sicilian, Taimanov (Bastrikov) Variation 42. A Donchenko vs J B Bjerre   ½-½ 54 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss B94 Sicilian, Najdorf 43. Abdusattorov vs T Kuybokarov   ½-½ 44 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss A27 English, Three Knights System 44. L van Foreest vs A Tari   ½-½ 32 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss E34 Nimzo-Indian, Classical, Noa Variation 45. S Vokhidov vs B Deac   ½-½ 59 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss B51 Sicilian, Canal-Sokolsky (Rossolimo) Attack 46. L Budisavljevic vs Bluebaum   0-1 43 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss C07 French, Tarrasch 47. D Gukesh vs F Rakotomaharo   1-0 61 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss D39 Queen's Gambit Declined, Ragozin, Vienna Variation 48. N Miezis vs Sasikiran   ½-½ 37 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss A10 English 49. A Neiksans vs A Sarana   1-0 58 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss B51 Sicilian, Canal-Sokolsky (Rossolimo) Attack 50. Xiong vs J Zhou   ½-½ 81 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss B25 Sicilian, Closed  page 2 of 24; games 26-50 of 594    REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)   < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 5 OF 5 ·  Later Kibitzing> Nov-07-21    nok: <So the amazing 18 year old Firouzja is in.> "A Night at the Oparin" Nov-07-21    devere: Firouzja wins the tournament and Fab qualifies. For once a FIDE event goes well. Now two more candidates spots left for the Feb-April 22 Grand Prix. to decide. Nov-07-21    devere: Wikipedia now shows Fab as having qualified for the candidates tournament, and the last round hasn't even finished yet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World... . Nov-07-21    Refused: Sjugirov - Vitiugov was nuts. Either player was winning at some point in that game. And Yilmaz will kick himself for blundering away a full point against Alekseenko. Can somebody aupdate me on the GP qualifiers. I figure it's Oparin, Yu, MVL, Shirov and Keymer, and ? Nov-07-21    Olavi: Predke, I presume. Nov-07-21    Albertan: Grand Swiss:Firouzja beats Howell: https://en.chessbase.com/post/grand... Grand Swiss 10:Firouzja a draw away from the Candidates: https://chess24.com/en/read/news/gr... FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss:Round 10 Recap: https://www.fide.com/news/1422 Nov-07-21    Albertan: Grand Swiss (open) final standings: https://grandswiss.fide.com/open/ Nov-07-21    Albertan: Alireza Firouzja wins the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss.American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana qualifies for the Candidates with Firouzja,because Caruana had a superior tie-break to Grigoriy Oparin: https://ruchess.ru/en/news/all/alir... Nov-07-21    Albertan: Grand Swiss:Firouzja and Caruana in the Candidates: https://en.chessbase.com/post/grand... Nov-08-21    Messiah: <TRIVIA from the 594 games played> There were no games where the black king went to a1 - but b1, c1, d1, h1 and h2 had one game, respectively. There was one game where a black knight jumped to h1. There was one game where black's a-pawn was promoted on f1, and one where the b-pawn was promoted on h1. There were no games where the white king went to g8 or h8. There were no games where a white knight jumped to h8. There were 162 white wins, 320 draws, and 112 black wins. White's average rating was 2640, with 2667 performance. Black's average rating was 2638, with 2611 performance. The highest average rating games were Caruana - Angry (2800 vs 2770, 1-0), MVL - Caruana (2763 vs 2800, draw), and Angry - MVL (2770 vs 2763, draw) 1-0 average length was 48 moves, draw 46 moves, 0-1 50 moves. Shortest wins with White were Jobava - Moussard (14 moves), Cheparinov - Kravtsiv (24 moves), and several 26 moves. Ponkratov as Black lost two games in 26 moves. Shortest wins with Black were Niemann - Xiong (25 moves), Kravtsiv - Jorden van Foreest (26 moves), and Saric - Shirov (30 moves) 1. e4 was played 307 times, 1.d4 189 times, 1.c4 49 times, 1.Nf3 46 times, and 1.b3 3 times. Opposite-side castling occurred in 7% of the games. From the 15 highest average rating games there were 3 White wins (Caruana - Howell and Caruana - Chigaev were both 34 moves), 1 Black win, and the remaining were draws. There was no game starting with 1.d4 f5. Nov-08-21    Albertan: Firouzja wins FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss ,reaches Candidates with Caruana: https://www.chess.com/news/view/ali... Nov-08-21    Albertan: An interview with Firouzja: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJt... Nov-08-21    0ZeR0: Congratulations are in order for Firouzja. What can you say? The kid's special. Looking forward to seeing what he can do in the Candidates. Nov-08-21    carpovius: From the crosstable above Oparin took the 2nd place and qualified?! Nov-08-21    perfidious: No--Caruana was cold for a spot going into the last round, due to S-B tiebreaks, so long as he made a draw, though a half-point behind Firouzja, for whom a draw was also sufficient. This was one more instance in which a player tieing for a spot in a Swiss and being higher-rated guaranteed he would face higher-rated (presumably more difficult) opponents, but over this longer event, also ensured a huge edge in any tiebreak. Nov-08-21    Olavi: No--the first tiebreak was Buchholz minus worst opponent. Caruana had that won over Oparin before the last round. But that underlines your point even more, since it's immaterial who you score your points against. Nov-08-21    Edeltalent: <Messiah: There was one game where black's a-pawn was promoted on f1, and one where the b-pawn was promoted on h1.> Cool, I'd be interested to see them (especially the second), can you share the games please? Nov-08-21    Tabanus: This chessgames.com chess event must be what Daniel called "squeeky clean". Nov-08-21    metatron2: <Its nice to see the older guys in the lead now, but that probably won't last long..> I wrote this after 5 rounds, but 49 yo Shirov, did manage to play well up until the final 11th round, going undefeated while facing the toughest opposition(!), including: Firouzja, MVL, Esipenko, Vitiugov and Yu Yangyi. And he qualified for the next Grand Prix. Very impressive.. Nov-08-21    virginmind: Congratulations, Alireza Firouzja! You will be big. Nov-09-21    Albertan: Firouzja and Lei win Grand Swiss Tournaments in Riga: https://kasparovchess.com/articles/... Nov-11-21    Messiah: <Edeltalent: <Messiah: There was one game where black's a-pawn was promoted on f1, and one where the b-pawn was promoted on h1.> Cool, I'd be interested to see them (especially the second), can you share the games please?> I cannot find either of them, the scid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane...) lied. I cannot understand what went wrong, apologies for my false claim. Nov-12-21    Albertan: Grand Swiss highlights part 1: https://en.chessbase.com/post/grand... Grand Swiss highlights part 2: https://en.chessbase.com/post/grand... Dec-22-21    Albertan: In case some of you are interested in this: 2022 Grand Prix To Start February 3rd: https://www.chess.com/news/view/202... Jan-02-22    tuttifrutty: <You will be big> Hahaha, for now he is, because of Covid which prevented a lot of top players unable to attend. Wait til He play against Wesley So,,he will be not so big no more. lol. Jump to page #    (enter # from 1 to 5) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 5 OF 5 ·  Later Kibitzing> NOTE: Create an account today to post replies and access other powerful features which are available only to registered users. Becoming a member is free, anonymous, and takes less than 1 minute! If you already have a username, then simply login login under your username now to join the discussion. Please observe our posting guidelines: No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language. No spamming, advertising, duplicate, or gibberish posts. No vitriolic or systematic personal attacks against other members. Nothing in violation of United States law. No cyberstalking or malicious posting of negative or private information (doxing/doxxing) of members. No trolling. 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