R Praggnanandhaa (left) and Magnus Carlsen will be among some of the top names at the Las Vegas Freestyle Chess event.
Praggnanandhaa found himself clubbed with Magnus Carlsen in the same group, while Arjun Erigaisi and Vidit Gujarathi were bunched together in the other pool of the 16‑player Freestyle chess tournament to be held here.
World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen will yet again start as the favourite for the title in this edition that saw a lot of pre‑event activities including participation of NBA players. The tournament‑proper starts late on Wednesday.
The event carries a total prize pool of USD 500,000 with USD 200,000 reserved for the winner. Each group has eight players in the line up and the top four will advance to the next stage while the bottom half will play against each other.
World champion D Gukesh is going to give the event a miss as he will be playing the main event of the Grandmaster tournament here on Thursday.
The 19‑year‑old Praggnanandhaa will start his campaign against Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan, a player who was struggling at the previous edition of Grand Chess Tour in Zagreb, Croatia.
Carlsen will play the winner of the first edition, Vincent Keymer of Germany, in his opening round. American Hans Niemann will make his first appearance in the Freestyle chess tournament and take on Erigaisi in the opener.
Freestyle chess is a new branch of chess from FIDE where the position of the six pieces is randomly changed at the start of each move.