Kazakhstan National Chess begins with Kazhgaleyev, Nakhbayeva Top Seeds

Hello Chess Blog readers, Another national chess championships are taking place in the strong chess country of Kazakhstan. The events run from May 3-12 in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

WGM Guliskhan Nakhbayeva

The open section, or the men's section, is a 12-player FIDE round robin with an average rating 2417 (seventh category). GM Murtas Kazhgaleyev is the first seed. The tournament is valid for achieving GM and IM norms. The women's section is a 9 round Swiss, including 28 players. WGM Guliskhan Nakhbayeva is the top seed, according to a FIDE news update.

You can watch the games live and find more information at the official website.

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Rapid, Blitz World Chess Regulations Approved: GM Sutovsky

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

The latest chess news update about the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship to be held in Kazakhstan is that the regulations are in place and the prize fund is now $400,000.

This was announced by Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) president GM Emil Sutovsky during an interview with Chess-News. GM Sutovsky also spoke about several important decisions made during the FIDE Presidential Board meeting in Elista. "At last, the regulations were approved about the Rapid and Blitz World Championships to be held in Kazakhstan between 24 June and 1 July. I think it's great that it was possible to attract a serious prize fund of $400,000. As a person who is involved in writing the regulations for these championships (there were discussions about how many people should be invited according to their rating and how many selected), I always have the view that in these kind of tournaments there should be as many places as possible available for a selection, since it's not quite right to invite everyone according to their rating and provide 1-2 places for the selection. That's because, first of all, the official rating is for classical chess, while it's not quite clear why there must be invitations for the rapid and blitz tournaments according to the rating. At the end, a compromise decision was reached: there will be selection to the rapid and blitz tournaments. There will be six places selected for the rapid and five for the blitz. That's because one place in blitz is reserved for the previous World Championship winner, while there hasn't been a championship like that in the rapid before. Therefore, there will be sixteen participants [in each type of tournament] who will include five in the blitz and six in the rapid selected."

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com