One of the strongest chess tournaments of 2013 is starting tomorrow: the Tal Memorial. The top seeds are Magnus Carlsen (2864, Norway), Vladimir Kramnik (2803, Russia) and Viswanathan Anand (2786, India) so it will surely be a memorable event. The tournament is held in the memory of the 8th World Champion, Mikhail Tal. Here's a preview with all the necessary information.

The 8th Tal Memorial will be held June 12-23, 2013 in Moscow, Russia. The tournament is a 10-player round robin with the following players:

1. Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2864)
2. Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2803)
3. Viswanathan Anand (India, 2786)
4. Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2784)
5. Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2782)
6. Fabiano Caruana (Italy, 2774)
7. Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2760)
8. Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2755)
9. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaidjan, 2753)
10. Dmitry Andreikin (Russia, 2713)

The opening ceremony (including blitz tournament, see below) will be held on Wednesday, June 12th and the first round is on Thursday, June 13th. The rest days are June 16th and June 20th. The last round is on June 23rd.

The time control is 1 hour and 40 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes to finish the game, with a 30-second increment starting from move 1. Draw offers before move 41 are not allowed. The Chief Arbiter is Andrzej Filipowicz of Poland.

For the first time, the games will be played at the new technology center Digital October.

Tiebreak rules & prizes

In case of a tie, the following tiebreak rules will be used:

• Maximum number of games played with Black;
• Maximum number of wins;
• Direct encounter;
• Sonneborn-Berger.

The total prize fund is 100,000 EUR and the prizes are distributed as follows:

1. € 30,000
2. € 20,000
3. € 15,000
4. € 10,000
5. € 8,000
6. € 6,000
7. € 4,000
8. € 3,000
9. € 2,500
10. € 1,500

Blitz tournament

Tomorrow at 16:00 CET the tournament starts with the opening ceremony and, like last year, a blitz tournament. Instead of a drawing of lots, the final standings of this blitz tournament will determine the lot numbers for the players. The time control will be 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment and these are the prizes:

1. € 5,000
2. € 3,000
3. € 2,000
4. € 1,500
5. € 1,000
6. € 700
7. € 600
8. € 500
9. € 400
10. € 300

As in previous years, the tournament can be followed online with streaming video and commentary. This year the commentators are GMs Alexander Grischuk, Peter Svidler, Sergey Rublevsky and Sergey Shipov.

The tournament will surely be broadcast on all chess websites and servers so you can pick your favorite place. The official live page is online.russiachess.org.

ChessVibes will be providing daily coverage. Of course!