The line-up for the $350,000 Grand Chess Tour Finals at the London Chess Classic, starting on 2nd December at Olympia Conference Centre, has been revealed as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave squeezed into the fourth qualifying place after the dramatic elimination of Vishy Anand.
The finalists are: Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Levon Aronian.
Each match will be contested between two players over a total of two Classic games, two Rapid games and four Blitz games. All games in each match must be completed, even when a match is already decided.
Time control: - Classic games: 130 Minutes with a 30 second delay per move from move 1. - Rapid games: 25 minutes, with a 10-second delay from move 1. - Blitz games: 5 minutes, with a 3-second delay from move 1.
Scoring: Points will be allocated to each game within the respective matches as follows: - 6 points for a win, 3 points for a draw and 0 points for a loss in the 2 Classic games. - 4 points for a win, 2 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss in the 2 Rapid games; and - 2 point for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss in the 4 Blitz games.
Each match will therefore be scored out of a total of (6 pts * 2 Classic games) + (4 pts * 2 rapid games) + (2 pts * 4 blitz games) = 28 possible points.
A total of 15 points will be required to win each match.
