The 2024 European Individual Chess Championship kicks off this Friday in Petrovac, Montenegro, and will run from November 8-19 in the 4-star Hotel “Palas”.

The Championship is an 11-round Swiss tournament, with the time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, plus 30 minutes until the end of the game, with 30 seconds increment for each move starting from move one.

Nearly 400 players from 42 European federations registered for the event, including 120 GMs, 85 IMs, 71 FMs, 3 WGMs and 8 WIMs.

The top-seed players in the field are GMs Vladimir Fedoseev (SLO, 2712), Bogdan-Daniel Deac (ROU, 2687), Jorden Van Foreest (NED, 2687), Haik Martirosyan (ARM, 2676), David Navara (CZE, 2674), Ivan Saric (CRO, 2668), Nikita Vitiugov (ENG, 2668), Shant Sargsyan (ARM, 2655),  Jonas Buhl Bjerre (DEN, 2654) and Matthias Bluebaum (GER, 2654).

Starting rank list of players can be found here.

The European Individual Chess Championship 2024 serves as a qualifier for the FIDE World Cup 2025. According to the FIDE regulations for World Cup and the ECU Board decision, the top-20 players will qualify for the World Cup.

The total prize fund of the Championship is €100,000, with €20,000 reserved for the champion.

The opening ceremony of the event will take place on November 8 at 14:00 CET, followed by the first round at 15:00 CET. Live broadcast with commentaries by GM Alojzije Jankovic and Dragana Nikolovska is available in the ECU TV platform. It will also be streamed on the ECU YouTube channel.

Text and photos: europechess.org/

Official website: eicc2024.sahcg.me/