1st ACP World Rapid Cup announced

This morning GM Mikhail Golubev sent me a joint press release of the Ukrainian Bank Pivdennyi and the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP), in which the First ACP World Rapid Cup is announced. It’s great to see that the ACP managed to get together a bunch of super grandmasters for the rapid tournament that will be held 4-8 January. No wonder the press release starts enthousiastically: “A new move in the history of professional chess!”

PRESS RELEASE

On December 13th 2006, a press conference was held at Bank Pivdennyi (Odessa, Ukraine) by Mr. Vadim Morokhovsky, Chairman of the Board of Bank Pivdennyi, Vice-President of the Ukrainian Chess Federation, and President of the Odessa Region Chess Federation, and Grandmaster Pavel Tregubov, President of the Association of Chess Professionals. They announced the list of participants of the 1st ACP World Rapid Cup, which will take place in the Hotel Londonskaya, Odessa, from January 4th to
8th 2007.

Morokhovsky (l.) and Tregubov

The event organized by Bank Pivdennyi is the final stage of the ACP Tour, which is the most important project of the ACP since its
foundation in 2003. The prize fund of the tournament amounts to 136,000 USD. The Cup is a rare example of highest level tournament based on a strict qualification system. Those who gained the right to participate in the 1st ACP World Rapid Cup are the 14 players who performed best in the ACP Tours held in 2004/2005 and 2005/2006. Three Grandmasters of the main list withdrew and were substituted by the players who occupied the first places in the reserve list.

The 14 players who will therefore take part in the first ACP WRC are: Alexander Morozevich (Russia), Peter Leko (Hungary), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Alexei Shirov (Spain), Etienne Bacrot (France), Sergey Rublevsky (Russia), Evgeny Bareev (Russia), Arkadij Naiditsch (Germany), Pentala Harikrishna (India), Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands), Victor Bologan (Moldova), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Farrukh Amonatov (Tajikistan).

In addition, on the proposal of Bank Pivdennyi, two Wild Cards are given to Vassily Ivanchuk (highest rated Ukrainian Grandmaster) and Ilia Smirin (Israel). Sixteen world level grandmasters will thus take part in this competition, which will be a knock-out tournament. The World Cup regulations and schedule are published on the ACP official website.

ACP Board
Press Department of the Pivdennyi Bank