Greetings Chess Players. My name is Chris Torres and this is my daily chess musing for Tuesday, May 18, 2021.
The Strongest Chess Tournament in History Begins on May 23
FTX Crypto Cup will take place from May 23-31. Its record $320,000 online prize fund has attracted a strong field of elite grandmasters. In fact, for the first time in history, every chess player on the current FIDE (World Chess) Top 10 list will be competing. This places this tournament slightly ahead of Vienna 1882 and Linares 1993 which both had an amazing nine out of the top ten players.


With such a collection of talent competing for an enormous prize fund and a qualification for the Meltwater Champions Tour Final in San Francisco, the FTX Crypto Cup is sure to be an action packed event.
Here are the complete field of elite Grandmasters set to compete in the FTX Crypto Cup on May 23.
1. Magnus Carlsen (Nor), 2. Fabiano Caruana (USA), 3. Ding Liren (Chn), 4. Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus), 5. Levon Aronian (Arm), 6. Anish
Giri (Ned), 7. Alexander Grischuk (Rus), 8. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
(Aze), 9. Wesley So (USA), 10. Teimour Radjabov (Aze), 11. Maxime
Vachier-Lagrave (Fra), 12. Alireza Firouzja (FIDE), 13. Hikaru Nakamura (USA), 14. Daniil Dubov (Rus), 15. Peter Svidler (Rus), 16. Alan Pichot (Arg).
The format behind with three days of all-players competing followed by a knock-out format among the top eight. The official tournament site is https://championschesstour.com/ftx-crypto-cup-worlds-first-bitcoin-chess-tournament/ and http://chess24.com/ has promised to provide free coverage with “multiple streams for chess fans of all levels and nationalities.” In addition, because approximately $100,000 of the prize fund will be paid in Bitcoin, FTX (https://ftx.com) will be displaying the fluctuations in the prize fund value in real-time throughout this event.
I hope you enjoyed today’s daily chess musing and are excited to follow all the action during the strongest chess tournament in history by tuning in to the Daily Chess Musings YouTube channel for daily recaps of the 2021 FTX Crypto Cup.
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