Background

For the first time, the World Rapid and Blitz will be held in North America this year, as the chess year will close out on Wall Street in New York. The players will compete in a 13-round Swiss, with a time control of 3 minutes + 2 second increment, starting from move one. The eight highest-scoring players after 13 rounds will move on to a single-elimination bracket, the winner of which will be declared the champion. Almost 200 players are set to participate in the event, including strong players like Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Gukesh Dommaraju, and others.

Resolution Criteria

This market will resolve based on the official winner of the open section of the 2024 World Blitz Chess Championship, based on reporting by FIDE. If the tournament is canceled or postponed to 2025, the market will resolve as N/A.

Considerations

• Magnus Carlsen has won this event six times, including each of the past two years. Other previous winners who are participating this year include Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2021), Alexander Grischuk (2015, 2012), and Lê Quang Liêm (2013).

• The format has been changed to include a single-elimination bracket after the Swiss portion, regardless of results; In previous editions, a single-elimination bracket was only used if there was a tie for first.

• This event has significantly fewer rounds in the Swiss portion than last year's event, which had 21 rounds; this may increase variability.

• The blitz format often produces more unpredictable results than classical chess, as even top players can make significant mistakes under time pressure

• The tournament typically attracts a large field of strong players, making it more challenging to predict than match-play championships

Notes and Links

• Tiebreaker rules and other info can be found here: https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/wrbc_regulations_2024_open.pdf

• The list of players expected to attend can be found here: https://chess-results.com/tnr1074692.aspx?lan=1&art=0&flag=30

• All players listed as an option at this market's creation are expected to play, but an option won't be "removed" or N/A'd if the associated player drops out.