Approximately 300 elite chess players from around the world have registered for the upcoming world tournament in New York City.

This holiday season, New York City’s financial district will transform into a battleground for the world's greatest chess minds in the 2024 FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship. The tournament, sponsored by Freedom Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: FRHC), will be held December 26-31 featuring fast-paced, high-stakes games and not the typical hours-long battles.

This six-day event will showcase elite chess players from every continent as they converge on the heart of Wall Street. A prize fund of nearly $1.5 million will be presented at the tournament. This year's event debuts a thrilling knockout stage in the later rounds, elevating the competition by raising the stakes and ensuring dramatic finishes that will keep players and fans captivated until the final move.

The open competition has confirmed 180 players and 109 players in the Women’s tournament. The tournament includes the world’s top-rated player and former world champion in classical chess, Magnus Carlsen. As the top seed, Carlsen will aim to defend his titles in both the Rapid and Blitz formats.

Chess fans will also be able to see three former World Championship Challengers in action – current U.S. champion Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi from Moscow, and Israeli Grandmaster Boris Gelfand.

The U.S. chess elite is taking advantage of playing on home turf as many top Grandmasters have registered, including Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Jeffrey Xiong, Leinier Domignuez Perez, Hans Niemann, Sam Shankland, and others.

The stellar lineup also includes the strongest players from the biggest chess nations in the world, such as India, China, Ukraine, France, Uzbekistan, and others.

In the Women’s competition, current World Champion in classical chess Ju Wenjun leads the field. She is joined by four former world champions Tan Zhongyi, Mariya Muzychuk, Alexandra Kosteniuk, and Zhu Chen.

Representing the U.S. are the nation’s current women’s champion Carissa Yip, as well as former U.S. women’s champions Irina Krush and Jennifer Yu.

Other prominent contenders for the top places will also be there, including Kateryna Lagno, Humpy Koneru, Harika Dronavalli, Nana Dzagnidze and Bibisara Assaubayeva.

For the first time ever, there will be a day without competitive play, which will be used to host The Wall Street Gambit on December 29, bringing together chess legends and financial leaders to explore the fascinating intersections between the two worlds.

The full list of participants in both the Rapid and the Blitz can be found here.

Tickets for both the Rapid and the Blitz as well as for the Wall Street Gambit Conference are available here.

About FIDE

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) is the governing body of the sport of chess, and it regulates all international chess competitions. Constituted as a non-governmental institution, it was recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a Global Sporting Organization in 1999. FIDE currently has its headquarters in Lausanne, but it was initially founded in 1924 in Paris under the motto “Gens una Sumus” (Latin for “We are one Family”). It was one of the very first International Sports Federations, alongside the governing bodies of the sports of football, cricket, swimming, and auto racing. It is now one of the largest, encompassing 201 countries as affiliate members, in the form of National Chess Federations. Chess is nowadays a truly global sport, with dozens of millions of players in all the continents, and more than 60 million games on average played every day.

To learn more about FIDE, visit: https://www.fide.com/

About Freedom Holding Corp.

Freedom Holding Corp., a Nevada corporation, is a diversified financial services holding company conducting retail securities brokerage, investment research, investment counseling, securities trading, investment banking and underwriting services, mortgages, insurance, and consumer banking through its subsidiaries, operating under the name Freedom Finance in Europe and Central Asia, and Freedom Capital Markets in the United States. Through its subsidiaries, Freedom Holding Corp. employs more than 7,600 people and is a professional participant in the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, the Astana International Exchange, the Republican Stock Exchange of Tashkent, and the Uzbek Republican Currency Exchange and is a member of the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

Freedom Holding Corp.'s common shares are registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and are traded under the symbol FRHC on the Nasdaq Capital Market, operated by Nasdaq, Inc. The Company has its main market of operations in Kazakhstan and has operations through its subsidiaries in 22 countries.

To learn more about Freedom Holding Corp., visit: https://www.freedomholdingcorp.com/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241216575104/en/