Palma de Mallorca Grand Prix - Opening Ceremony

The final stage of the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2017 opens in Palma de Mallorca

The world’s best chess players and chess establishment came together in Bellver Castle to celebrate the opening of the final leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Palma de Mallorca.

Palma de Mallorca is now looking forward to 9 days of intense chess battles, which will finally determine the two winners of the series – participants of the FIDE Candidates tournament.

The Opening Ceremony was held at the landmark hilltop Bellver Castle, former residence for the Kings of Mallorca built in the 14th century in a Gothic style. At the castle’s unique circular yard guests had a good opportunity to mingle with each other and enjoy modern Spanish guitar music.

Javier Ochoa, Honorary FIDE Vice President and President of the Spanish Chess Federation, thanked FIDE for the opportunity to host the tournament and welcomed the participants. “Spain is a country with a great Chess tradition and a thousand-year long history of playing chess,” he added.

Sebastia Nadal, President of the Winter Chess: “It is very rewarding to know that one of the best Spanish chess players of our time, Francisco Vallejo Pons, who was born and who resides here in our islands, could take part in this cycle of the World Chess.”

In the drawing of colours, the top player of the tournament Levon Aronian chose black pieces for the first round. The pairings for the first round are the following:

Dmitry Jakovenko – Levon Aronian
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave – Boris Gelfand
Pavel Eljanov – Hikaru Nakamura
Ding Liren – Francisco Vallejo Pons
Evgeny Tomashevsky – Peter Svidler
Anish Giri – Richard Rapport
Ernesto Inarkiev – Li Chao
Teimour Radjabov – Alexander Riazantsev
Jon Ludvig Hammer – Harikrishna Pentala

The Palma Grand Prix is supported by Official Partner EG Capital Advisors, an international asset management company, Kaspersky Lab, World Chess and FIDE Official Cybersecurity Partner, S.T. Dupont, Official Writing Instrument, and Isklar, Official Water.

First round starts tomorrow at Hotel Iberostar Bahia de Palma.

Opening Ceremony Photo Gallery

The official website https://worldchess.com/gp2017/