NIZHNY NOVGOROD, November 24. /TASS/. Russian Chess Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin will participate in two more chess tournaments this year, the player told TASS on Friday.

"It’s hard to say what will happen next year, but this year, in December, I will certainly take part in two tournaments," he said. "The first one will be a commercial tournament organized by the ‘Region’ group of companies and the other one will be the third round of the 'Chess Stars' series."

Karjakin noted that by participating in the second of his scheduled tournaments in December he would get a chance to face the strongest chess players in the world, adding "it’s not every day that I get a chance to play against them."

The Russian chess grandmaster stated earlier that he would not participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization chess tournament, which is scheduled to run in China on December 17-18.

Karjakin, 33, won the Chess World Cup in 2015. He is also a former world champion in Rapid Chess (2012) and Blitz (2016). In 2016 he won the FIDE Candidates tournament and later that year lost to Norwegian Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen in his battle for the World Chess Crown.