Who will become the first opponents of D.Ciuksyte and S.Sulskis?

The World Chess Championships start on the 25th of November in Moscow. The first matches will be played only on the 27th of November. FIDE has already announced the participants’ list, both men and women but the lot has not been drawn yet. 128 men will be competing for the title of the World Chess Champion and Sarunas Sulskis is the 79th among them. Dagne Ciuksyte is the 50th among 64 women. According to the new FIDE regulations, the lot is drawn in such a way: the first number plays with the last one, i.e. No.1 - No.128, No.2 - No.127 and so on. Therefore, there is a high possibility that Sarunas will meet A. Graf (ELO-2610), and Dagne – K. Arakhamia-Grant (ELO-2446) in their first matches. Ketevan Arakhamia is a famous Georgian grandmaster that now lives in England. Alexander Graf is a former Uzbek grandmaster Alexander Nenašev (Graf is his grandfather’s surname). Now he lives in Germany and is a citizen of this country. All we have to do now is wait for the official statements about the results of the lot from FIDE.