The 2019 Cote d’Ivoire Rapid & Blitz is one of four new events that will be joining the Grand Chess Tour roster in 2019. The tournament will be the first stop on the 2019 Grand Chess Tour and will be the first tournament on the African continent to ever feature the participation of the reigning world chess champion. It will take place at Pullman Abijan Hotel from May 8-12, 2019.

Magnus Carlsen is looking forward to playing rapid chess again after winning three super tournaments with classical time control one after the other, including recently finished the Grenke Chess Classic.

While most of the players are no strangers to the Tour, there will be newcomers, including Wei Yi and Bassem Amin, who received wild cards this year.

Amin Bassem is the reigning African Individual Champion, as well as the number one, ranked player from the African continent. He will become the first player from Africa to participate in a GCT tournament.

Chinese player Wei Yi represents the very best of a growing group of emerging junior players.

Participants will compete over 9 rounds of rapid chess and 18 rounds of blitz chess for a total prize fund of $150,000. The tournament has been made possible by a partnership between Vivendi SA, Canal+ Group and the Pullman Abidjan Hotel.

Participants

Magnus Carlsen	Hikaru Nakamura	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	Liren Ding	Wesley So
Ian Nepomniachtchi	Sergey Karjakin	Yi Wei	Veselin Topalov	Bassem Amin

The fifth edition of the Grand Chess Tour (GCT) will see the tour expand to eight tournaments and increase the number of full tour participants to twelve. The tour will also welcome fourteen event level wildcards in 2019. Tour participants will fight for a record prize fund of $1.75 million as the GCT expands its reach to four continents to include tournaments in Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. The prize money on offer for the classical tournaments has been increased to $325,000 per event ($90,000 for 1st place and $60,000 for 2nd) while the prize fund for the GCT Finals in London will also be raised to $350,000 ($150,000 for 1st place and $100,000 for 2nd).