American GMs Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So haveconfirmed their participation in the2021Grand Chess Tour,which returnsafter its cancellationlast yeardue to the global pandemic.

TheU.S. stars join eight other world elite as full-tour participants in the2021GCTschedule, whichfollows the same five-tournament format originally planned for lastseason. Theinternational tourfeatures two classical tournaments with prize funds of $325,000 each,including the kickoff event in Romania in June and the tour finale Sinquefield Cup in St. Louisin August,bookendingthree rapid and blitz events with prize funds of $150,000.

We are excited to return to over the board events this year, said MichaelKhodarkovsky, executive director for the GCT. All five event locations will comply with local COVID-19 guidelines and fans can expect the same excitement and action that they have come to love and enjoy from theGrand Chess Tour.

The full schedule for the 2021 GCT season is as follows:

SuperbetChess Classic Romania: June 3-15, 2021 in Bucharest, Romania

Paris Rapid & Blitz: June 16-23, 2021 in Paris, France

Croatia Rapid & Blitz: July 5-12, 2021 in Zagreb, Croatia

St. Louis Rapid & Blitz: August 9-16, 2021 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Sinquefield Cup: August 16-28, 2021 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA

There will be no GCT finals tournamentlike there was in 2019, which took placewithin the London Chess Classic. Instead, the final tour standings will be decided based ontourpoints accumulated over thefive 2021 events. A bonus prize fund of $175,000 will be awarded to the top three overall GCT finishers.

Invitations for the 2021 tour were extended to those who had qualified for2020,including China GM Ding Liren who won the 2019tour.Missing this year isWorld Champion GM Magnus Carlsen and American GM Hikaru Nakamura, who bothelected not to participate as full tourparticipants.They were replaced by Azerbaijani GMsShakhriyarMamedyarovandTeimourRadjabov, who makes his GCT debut.

The ten full-tour participants for the 2021 GCT is as follows:

These ten participants will play in both classical events and two of the three rapid and blitz tournaments.An additional ten wildcards will be extended to selected players to participate in those Paris, Zagreb and St. Louis events. For more information, visit the Grand Chess Tour website.

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Grand Chess Tour Returning in Summer 2021 | US Chess.org - uschess.org