The World Rapid Chess Championship 2019 (known as the King Salman World Rapid & Blitz Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a chess tournament held to determine the world champion in chess played under rapid time controls. Since 2012, FIDE has held the World Rapid and Blitz Championships at a joint tournament.
The event took place at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia between 26 and 28 December 2019, using a Swiss-system with 15 rounds for the open tournament and 12 rounds for the women's tournament. Players who were eligible to participate must have either been rated at least 2550 Elo in a FIDE rating list during 2019, or were a reigning national champion. The time control for the tournament was 15+10, meaning each player initially started with 15 minutes and gained 10 seconds increment with each move.
Participants 207 players took part in the open tournament, and 122 in the women's tournament.
CodeFederationOpenWomen'sTotal Argentina101 Armenia7411 Austria202 Azerbaijan6511 Belarus314 Brazil202 Bulgaria022 Canada202 China437 Croatia201 Czechia101 Denmark022 Egypt202 Spain707 Estonia011 none101 Finland112 France112 Georgia358 Germany437 Hong Kong101 Hungary101 India11213 Iran033 Israel505 Italy011 Kazakhstan6612 Kyrgyzstan101 South Korea101 Saudi Arabia505 Lithuania101 Morocco101 Moldova101 Mongolia369 Netherlands101 Nepal101 Norway303 Poland628 Romania022 Russia (host)6542107 Serbia325 Switzerland101 Sweden123 Tajikistan011 Turkmenistan213 Turkey314 United Arab Emirates101 Ukraine3812 United States426 Uzbekistan202 Venezuela101 Vietnam202
Prize Fund The prize fund for both the open and women's tournament is shown below. In case of a tie (except for first place) all prize money was shared between the players. Players outside the brackets did not receive any prize money. All amounts are in USD.
Open tournament:
1st place: $60,000
2nd place: $50,000
3rd place: $40,000
4th place: $30,000
5th place: $25,000
6th place: $22,000
7th place: $18,000
8th place: $14,000
9th place: $11,000
10th place: $8,000
11th–16th places: $5,000
17th–25th places: $3,000
26th–35th places: $1,500
Total: $350,000
Women's tournament:
1st place: $40,000
2nd place: $30,000
3rd place: $20,000
4th place: $15,000
5th place: $10,000
6th place: $7,000
7th place: $6,000
8th place: $5,000
9th place: $4,000
10th place: $3,000
11th–15th places: $2,000
Total: $150,000
Schedule The opening ceremony took place on Wednesday 25 December. Start times are approximate as all matches in the previous round had to finish before the next round could commence. All times are CET.
Open roundWomen's roundDateTime11Thursday 26 December15:002216:153317:304418:45520:0065Friday 27 December15:007616:158717:309818:451020:00119Saturday 28 December15:00121016:15131117:30141218:451520:00
Open tournament results The following table lists all participants, with the results from the 15 rounds. They are ranked according to the results, taking into account the tie-breaks.
Notation: "1 (W 56)" indicates a win (1 point) with white pieces (W) against player of rank 56 (Azamat Utegaliyev). The first tiebreak (labeled BC1) is the Buchholz Cut 1 score, the second tiebreak (labeled BS) is the Buchholz score, and the third tiebreak (labelled AROC1) is the average rating of opponents cut 1.