Already featuring GMs Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So as full-tour players, meaning their participation in both of the GCT’s classical events and two of three speed events, the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz has brought in four other US Chess players as wildcards. GMs Sam Shankland, Jeffery Xiong and Leinier Dominguez are all in after their participation in the FIDE World Cup, while GM Hikaru Nakamura has picked an appropriate event for his return to the board: rated 2900 FIDE as the world’s highest-ranked blitz player.
| 2021 Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz Field | ||||
| Title | Name | Player Type | URS Rating | Residence |
| GM | Wesley So | Full Tour Player | 2793 | USA |
| GM | Fabiano Caruana | Full Tour Player | 2784 | USA |
| GM | Shakhriyar Mamedyarov | Full Tour Player | 2767 | Azerbaijan |
| GM | Richard Rapport | Full Tour Player | 2742 | Hungary |
| GM | Hikaru Nakamura | Wildcard | 2803 | USA |
| GM | Peter Svidler | Wildcard | 2738 | Russia |
| GM | Leinier Dominguez | Wildcard | 2750 | USA |
| GM | Liem Le | Wildcard | 2737 | Vietnam |
| GM | Sam Shankland | Wildcard | 2697 | USA |
| GM | Jeffery Xiong | Wildcard | 2690 | USA |
Also in St. Louis is Azerbaijani GM Shakhiryar Mamedyarov and Hungarian GM Richard Rapport, both full-tour participants, with additional wildcard players in Russian GM Peter Svidler and Vietnam GM Le Quang Liem, who recently took over as head coach of Webster University up the road in suburban St. Louis.
Play began on Wednesday first with the rapid portion, which plays three 25+10 games per day over three days, and each game counting double in the standings. The blitz portion will play Saturday and Sunday, with nine games each and scoring traditionally. Image
Image Captioncourtesy Grand Chess Tour
Four Americans are bunched at the top after Day 1: Caruana and Dominguez lead, both scoring two wins and a draw on Wednesday; So and Nakamura trailing in second place, with one win and a draw.
Caruana had this nice dismantle of the London System in Round 2 against Liem Le, digging in for the positional battle with 10. … Nb8, the beginning of an excellent reroute of the knight. The black steed found its first outpost at 16. … Nf5, drawing the first mistake from Liem Le in his attempt to kick the piece with 20. g4. Weakening the white king’s safety, the move only pushed the knight to an even-more powerful post at 23. Ne4; White dropped a pawn to remove it. In the rook-and-queen endgame, Liem Le’s decision to take his pawn back at 39. Qxe6 was the fatal mistake, granting the black queen access to his backline.
Day 2 of the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz, with rapid games 4-6, will begin on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. local time. Live games may be viewed on the Grand Chess Tour website, as well as live commentary from GMs Yasser Seirawan, Alejandro Ramirez and Maurice Ashley on the Kasparov Chess Twitch Channel.
