Candidates begins!

The 2013 Candidates in London starts today, Friday 15th March. See my previous post on this. Read Chessbase report on the opening ceremony.

As GM Erwin l'Ami  sums  it up nicely - "there are no weak players in London". This will be one of the strongest , if not the strongest, tournament of 2013.

London is eight hours behind Malaysia and normally, such tournaments starts their games at 3:00 PM , so in Malaysia we have to stay  up to a late hour if we want to catch the games.

First round pairings -

Let the games begin!

2013 FIDE Candidates

The 2013 FIDE Candidates tournament will begin in a week's time. The tournament will be a double round robin to be held in London from 14th March till 2nd April. This tournament is to determine a challenger to the current World Champion Viswanathan Anand.

The contenders are -

Boris Gelfand - loser of 2012 World Championship Match
Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik  and Levon Aronian - highest average ratings on July 2011 & January 2012 lists:
Peter Svidler , Alexander Grischuk and Vassily Ivanchuk  - top three from the 2011 World cup
Teimour Radjabov - nominated by Azerbaijan

Now the last candidate mentioned is a bit of a puzzle. The event is going to be held in London but Azerbaijan has a nomination? The answer is that Azerbaijan was originally slated to hold the tournament. However, Levon Aronian is Armenian and his country and Azerbaijan are still in conflict. Aronian had previously stated that he will not play in Azerbaijan thus London stepped in to hold the event. Azerbaijan was allowed to keep their nominee in the tournament.

The man in form and also the highest rated player in the world is Magnus Carlsen. My bet is on him to win. Kramnik is also in great shape and he is my other bet to win,

One thing is for sure. With a line up like this we will be treated to some great chess!