The race for the last Candidates spots

Coming next week...

A draw against the World Champion Magnus Carlsen, even a win, is granted to very few of us. Levon Aronian knows how both feels. But he also now knows how it feels miss out (with virtual certainty) on a chance at the next Candidates tournament. 

The Armenian grandmaster showed a fantastic performance at the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss at Isle of Man finishing in 4^th place. At the end even a win in the last round against Magnus Carlsen would not have been enough to qualify for the Candidates, but after the draw against the 28-year-old Norwegian the spectators witnessed a disappointed Aronian like hardly ever before in front of the camera. Always friendly to everybody and normally ready for a joke, he was obviously contrite, as he knew that his next attempt to conquer the throne will not start before the year 2021. Instead, Wang Hao, as the winner of Isle of Man, qualified for the Candidates in Yekaterinburg next March.

Although Levon Aronian (on the right) won against Wang Hao in their individual pairing, the Chinese won the ticket for the Candidates | Photo: John Saunders

The significance of the Candidates tournament for the top players is huge, as they only have a chance every two years to qualify or even win this prestigious tournament in order to challenge the World Champion. Basically only six players can qualify in a transparent way, as the runner-up of the last World Championship is pre-qualified — in this case Fabiano Caruana — and then there's the organizers' nominee. Several grandmasters come into question for this "wildcard" spot by the order of their results at the qualification tournaments and by their Elo rating, but no one can take this for granted.

Currently, only four participants are certain. Apart from Caruana and Wang Hao, Teimour Radjabov and Ding Liren qualified as winner and runner-up of the World Cup. So three spots are remain. One spot is reserved for the player with the best average Elo rating during the months spanning February 2019 to January 2020. Right now Anish Giri is leading this race, but there are still two months left, in which the situation could theoretically change. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Ian Nepomniachtchi are hot on his heels. Two further spots are awarded via the FIDE Grand Prix.

Teimour Radjabov (left) def. Ding Liren in the final of the World Cup | Photo: Kirill Merkuryev (FIDE)

The FIDE Grand Prix 2019 consists out of four tournaments. The first two legs took place in Moscow and Riga. The third leg will take place in Hamburg, and a final tournament will be played in Jerusalem. You can see the current standings of the FIDE Grand Prix in the following table. The green check marks show which players will participate in the respective cities.

Only a few players from the 21 who started are in the running for the two Candidates spots via the FIDE Grand Prix at this point. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Alexander Grischuk are leading with ten points, but will participate only in one of the remaining legs. Mamedyarov has the advantage of knowing how he needs to perform in Jerusalem, while Grischuk needs to perform as well as possible in Hamburg.

Standings in the FIDE Grand Prix before Hamburg

Pl.	player	country	Elo	GP	Moscow	Riga	Hamburg	Tel Aviv
1	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	AZE	2767	10	0	10
2	Alexander Grischuk	RUS	2759	10	7	3
3	Jan Nepomniachtchi	RUS	2776	9	9
4	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	FRA	2774	8th		8th
5	Radoslaw Wojtaszek	POLE	2748	5	5
6	Wesley So	USA	2767	4	1	3
7	Hikaru Nakamura	USA	2745	3	3	0
8th	Peter Svidler	RUS	2729	2	2	0
8th	Daniil Dubow	RUS	2699	2	2	0
10	Wei Yi	CHN	2721	2	2
11	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	POLE	2734	1	0	1
12	Sergey Karjakin	RUS	2760	1	0	1
13	Yu Yangyi	CHN	2763	1		1
14	Veselin Topalov	BUL	2736	1		1
15	Anish Giri	NED	2780	0	0	0
15	Levon Aronjan	POOR	2758	0	0	0
15	Nikita Vitjugov	RUS	2732	0	0	0
18	Teimour Radschabow	AZE	2758	0	0
18	Pentala Harikrishna	IND	2748	0		0
20	David Navara	CZE	2717	0		0
20	Dmitry Jakovenko	RUS	2681	0	0

Table courtesy the German Chess Federation

The Grand Prix points per tournament are as follows: winner 8 points, second 5 points, semi-final loser 3 points, quarter-final loser 1 point. In addition, players receive an additional point each match won without recourse to a tiebreak.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov after his victory at the FIDE Grand Prix in Riga | Photo: World Chess / FIDE

Behind these players Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave have reasonable chances, as they only played one tournament with a good result. Theoretically even players like Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Wei Yi could qualify, but they would probably need to win both remaining events to have a chance. 

The local chess fans can follow live in Hamburg how the race for the spots at the Candidates will proceed. After the 2015 Blitz and Rapid World Championship and the 2018 Candidates tournament in Berlin the local lovers of the royal game have again the benefit of visiting a top-level chess event in Germany. FIDE and World Chess obviously have realized that Germany is one of the favourite locations to present a chess event to a wider audience and decided to come back again.

Venue

The description and the photo gallery on the website of the venue is promising:

"The Theater Kehrwieder is an extraordinary location in the centre of Hamburg's Speicherstadt [warehouse district]. This charming theatre offers a combination of a historic atmosphere and impressive, modern facilities. The classic variety seats and red velvet walls of the theatre are in contrast to the industrial look of the house and the modern, white-furnished foyer. The flexible furnishing makes every event easy to realize."

Theater Kehrwieder, Kehrwieder 6, 20457 Hamburg

Schedule

Times in UTC (CET -1).

Format

A knockout (KO) tournament. In each round, two games are played against each other with players receiving 90 minutes for the first 40 moves plus 30 seconds bonus per move. If there is a draw then it continues until the decision with further two-party matches with ever shorter thinking time.

Tickets

Day tickets for the event are available from €36.35 (€24.35 reduced). Online at Eventim and Ticketonline and at the box office. VIP tickets can be found at Daimani.

Links

• Official website