The tournament will be an 8-round knockout event, with the top 50 seeds given a bye directly into the second round. The losers of the two semi-finals play a match for third place.
The top two finishers, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen, qualify for the Candidates Tournament 2022, which is a tournament to decide the next challenger for the World Championship. In addition all quarter-finalists, who have not otherwise qualified for the Candidates, qualify for the FIDE Grand Prix 2022, giving them another chance to qualify for the Candidates.
Each round will consist of classical time limit games on the first two days, plus tie-breaks on the third day if required. The time limits are as follows:
Two classical time limit games: 90 minutes, plus a 30 minute increment on move 40, plus a 30 second increment per move from move 1, per player.
If the match is tied after the classical games, players play two rapid chess games, with 25 minutes plus a 10 second increment per move, per player.
If the match is still tied, players then play two rapid chess games, with 10 minutes plus a 10 second increment per move, per player.
If the match is still tied, players then play two more blitz games, with 5 minutes plus a 3 second increment per move, per player.
If the match is still tied, a single armageddon chess game is played to decide the match, with draw odds to Black, meaning White must win but Black only needs to draw or win, to win the match. The players draw lots and the winner of the draw chooses their color. White receives 5 minutes, Black receives 4 minutes, and each player receives an extra 2 seconds per move beginning at move 61.
Schedule
Each round takes three days: two for classical time limit games and a third, if necessary, for tie-breaks. Rounds 1 to 3 run from July 12 to 20; July 21 is a rest day; Rounds 4 to 6 run from July 22 to 30; July 31 is a rest day; and the last two rounds run from August 1 to 6.
Play begins at 3.00pm local time (1200 UT) on all days.[1]
Prize money
The total prize fund is US$1,892,500, with the first prize of US$110,000.[2]
Prize money in US dollars
Round
Prizes
Total
Round 1
78 × 3,750
292,500
Round 2
64 × 6,000
384,000
Round 3
32 × 10,000
320,000
Round 4
16 × 16,000
256,000
Round 5
8 × 25,000
200,000
Round 6
4 × 35,000
140,000
4th place
1 × 50,000
50,000
3rd place
1 × 60,000
60,000
Runner-up
1 × 80,000
80,000
Winner
1 × 110,000
110,000
Total
1,892,500
Media
IM Eric Rosen is an official photographer for the event.[3]
Participants
The following is the list of participants. Players in bold have not yet been eliminated, as of July 20, 2021.[4][5] Players are seeded by their FIDE rating of June 2021, and all players are grandmasters unless indicated otherwise.
The 13 highest-rated players from the average of 12 rating lists, from July 2020 to June 2021 (R)
91 federations spots selected according to the average rating of their 10 highest rated players (FN).
4 nominees of the FIDE President (PN)
2 nominees of the organizer (ON)
The participants will be seeded by their FIDE rating of June 2021. For the first time, a hybrid format of online chess under arbiter supervision was allowed to be a part of the qualification process, due to the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in organizing over the board competition.[6][7]
Replacements
The following are the players from the list of qualifiers[4] who declined to play, and their replacements:
Ding Liren(CHN) (WC) → Anton Korobov(UKR) (R). Ding Liren is not playing because of China's COVID-19 travel restrictions, and also because he was committed to playing in a Chinese tournament.[8]
Temur Kuybokarov(AUS) (Z3.6) → Elmer Prudente(GUM) (Z3.6). Kuybokarov withdrew due to Australian travel restrictions due to COVID-19.[13]
Huang Renjie(CHN) (Z3.5) → an extra presidential nominee (PN)
Bai Jinshi(CHN) (Z3.5) → an extra presidential nominee (PN)
In addition, six federations (Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Japan, South Korea, Peru, Vietnam) did not nominate a player. Because of this and the two Zone 3.5 withdrawals, the number of presidential nominees (PN) increased from four to twelve, with the eight extra being:[14][4]
^Aronian forfeited both games for health-related reasons.[15]
^Caruana won the first game by forfeit, after Megaranto's COVID-19 test was confirmed as positive, 15 moves into the first game.[16] As a result, Megaranto was forced to forfeit the second game. FIDE confirmed a mid-game forfeit had occurred, but did not name the player, citing "privacy regulations".[17]