All systems go for the 2014 Candidates tournament

Candidates Tournament 2014 in Khanty-Mansiysk

The FIDE Candidates Tournament is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk (Russia). The first round will start on Thursday, March 13 at 3 p.m. local time, the final round is on Sunday, March 30, 2014. The event is a double round robin (14 rounds). The time control is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 and 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61. The tournament will determine the challenger who will face the reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a title match later this year. The prize fund is 600,000 Euros (= US $832,000), the first place 135,000 and last (8th) place 25,000 Euros.

The eight candidates, sorted by their March 2014 rankings, are:

The average rating of this event is 2770. If you are missing players like Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura (numbers 5–7 in the world rankings) they you should know that the qualification for the Candidates was not based on rating but on other criteria: Anand qualified by virtue of being the loser of the 2013 World Championship match; Kramnik and Andreikin by being the two top finishers in the World Cup 2013; Topalov and Mamedyarov by being the top two finishers of the FIDE Grand Prix 2012/13; Aronian and Karjakin on the basis of rating; and Svidler as the organizing committee's wild card.

The venue

The Candidates Tournament 2014 are be held in the modern building of the Ugra Chess Academy, which is located in the city center of Khanty-Mansiysk.

Khanty-Mansiysk is an oil boom town, located on the eastern bank of the Irtysh River, 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) from its confluence with the Ob. Population: 80,000.

The Ugra Chess Academy (6a Loparev St., Khanty-Mansiysk) is a unique three-level building with no sharp edges, designed by the famous Dutch architect Erick Van Egeraat and constructed using modern energy conserving technologies. The games will be held in the tournament hall on the first floor.

The hall, in which numerous international congresses and forums take place, can be transformed and changed in size due to the innovative construction. Apart from the tournament hall the Ugra Chess Academy consists of classrooms for children who are keen on chess, computer classrooms for holding the Internet tournaments, a cozy café and a hall decorated with pieces of art regarding chess.

The official tournament hotel is the four-star Hotel «Taray» (64, Lenin St. Khanty-Mansiysk)

The technical meeting

Chief arbiter Panagiotis Nikolopoulos, with Chairman of Events Commission
Boris Kutin and press officer Anastasiya Karlovich

Second seed, former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and top seed Levon Aronian

Third seed Veselin Topalov, former FIDE world champion from Bulgaria

Seventh seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azeribaijan

Former World Champion and fourth seed Viswanathan Anand from India

Sixth seed Peter Svidler from Russia

Opening ceremony

The festive opening ceremony of the 2014 Candidates Tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov with the Governor of Khanty-Mansiysk Natalya Komarova

Unveiling the chess board ...

... which is touched by the muse

The muse for the white pieces

A big recital on a magnificent organ

Schedule and results

Note: the games are played at 3 p.m. local time, which is 10 a.m. CET (Paris) and 5 a.m. EST (New York). Click here if you are uncertain what that means for your local time.

Playchess commentary

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.