FIDE Grand Prix 2008/2009 standings – Aronian wins

FIDE Grand Prix standings

The FIDE Grand Prix is a series of six tournaments held over two years (2008-2009). A total of 21 top world players were selected to compete in these events. Each player had to agree to participate in exactly four of the six tournaments. They could rank their preference of the locations and times, but FIDE had the right to assign players to tournaments according to the organizational needs.

Each tournament has 14 participants playing over a schedule of seventeen days. The months allocated for the organisation of the Grand Prix tournaments are April, August and December of each respective year. These months have been selected to ensure there is no conflict with any other major event.

Qualifiers for the Grand Prix 2008-2009

The players who qualify for selection to play in the Grand Prix are chosen on the following prioritized basis:

Matches – For the first cycle of 2008/9, all players in the World Championship (i.e. Kramnik or Anand) and Challenger matches (Topalov or the World Cup 2007 winner) were invited to participate in the Grand Prix from the outset.
Qualification – The FIDE World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk 2007 was used to determine three qualifiers for the 2008/9 Grand Prix Series. Excluding the winner, these will be the players who have qualified to the semi final stages of the World Cup.
Rating – Based on an average calculation to two decimal places, of the January 2007 rating list and the October 2007 rating list in the year prior to start of the cycle, seven qualifiers were selected.
President nominees – The FIDE President may nominate one player, who must be rated among the top 40 players in the world as per the October 2007 rating list. Players nominated by the President should be from different countries.
Host city nominees – One players may be nominated by each host city and must be rated not less than 2550 in the last rating list prior to the final nomination or selection of players. If the host city does not have a player rated at least 2550 then the highest rated player from the Federation of the host city will be invited to play, subject to his rating not being lower than 2500.

Tournament format

Each Grand Prix tournament is a 14-player round robin tournament of 13 rounds. Time control: 120 minutes for the first forty moves, 60 minutes for the next twenty moves and then 15 minutes and an increment of 30 seconds per move from move 61 onwards. The players are not allowed to offer draws directly to their opponents. Any draw claim will be permitted only through the Chief Arbiter.

Prize money and Grand Prix points

The recommended prize money which is offered by host city organisers for each tournament is 212,000 Euros and is split 162,000 Euros as direct prize money for the tournament and 50,000 Euros towards an accumulated prize fund for the players at the end of the series.

Place	Euros	GP Points
1st	30,000	140 points + 40 bonus
2nd	22,500	130 points + 20
3rd	20,000	120 points + 10
4th	15,000	110 points
5th	12,500	100 points
6th	11,000	90 points
7th	10,000	80 points
8th	8,500	70 points
9th	7,500	60 points
10th	6,000	50 points
11th	5,500	40 points
12th	5,000	30 points
13th	4,500	20 points
14th	4,000	10 points
Total	162,000

In the case of any tie in any tournament, the Grand Prix ranking points and prize money are split equally. The overall winner of the Grand Prix will be the one who will score the most number of cumulative points. The cumulative score will be calculated from the best three results for each player. The two top winners of the Grand Prix qualify to the Candidates Stage of the World Championship cycle 2009-2011.