Tatiana Kosintseva To Replace Her Sister in Grand Prix Series

The FIDE website reports that GM Teimour Radjabov withdrew from the Thessaloniki Grand Prix "for personal reasons" and will be replaced by the French GM Etienne Bacrot whose rating for August 2012 (the participants for the series were chosen according to their rating for exactly this month) was 2713. The tournament will start already on May 22nd.

Three Russian women players will participate in the new Grand Prix Series announced by FIDE recently. All three have been nominated: Alexandra Kosteniuk of Geneva, Olga Girya of Khanty-Mansiysk (these cities are supposed to host the 1st and 4th stages of the event), Nadezhda Kosintseva got FIDE president's "wild card." This has been announced on the website of RCF.

Yesterday in Dilijan took place the opening ceremony and drawing of lots of the second stage of the Women Grand Prix series. The leader of the series Bela Khotenashvili faces Tatiana Kosintseva with black in round one.
Other parings: Girya - Cmilyte, Tuvshintugs - Dzagnidze, Harika - Humpy, Danielian - Stefanova, Ushenina - Muzichuk.

This is how the tournament table looks like:

The sixth round of the Women's Grand Prix Series stage is under way. The leaders Anna Muzychuk and Elina Danielian have white pieces against Alexandra Kosteniuk and Nadezhda Kosintseva, respectively. You can watch these and other games live.

FIDE is officially announcing the change that has already been rumoured for some time: the 3rd Grand Prix tournament for the 2014/15 series is going to take place in Tbilisi instead of initially declared Tehran. However, the dates will be same - from February 14th to February 28th, 2015.

The 5th stage of FIDE Grand Prix 2013-2014 will start tomorrow in Beijing. Teimour Radjabov who awaits of his first child will skip the competition. He will be replaced by Wang Yue.

This stage will be decisive at the same time for several players, who fight for overall victory in the series.
Information on the tournament 

Yesterday we have published the table offered on the official FIDE website; the participants of the Grand Prix as well as the host cities of the different stages have been mentioned in it. We promised to update you with any changes which could have taken place, but we couldn't actually imagine that we had to inform you about such serious changes right on the next day.

The Rapid Grand Prix of Russia which gained popularity in 2012 will be held in the new year as well. The first stage will start on January 10 in Volgograd. The official website of the RCF reports the dates of the competition: January 10-14.