Thursday, November 11, 2010

Chess WC candidates

Winner and runner-up of the 2008–2010 FIDE Grand Prix:  Levon Aronian, Teimour Radjabov

Winner of the 2009 World Cup:  Boris Gelfand
Finalists from the last World Chess Championship cycle:  Veselin Topalov, Gata Kamsky
Based on rating:  Vladimir Kramnik
Other:  Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (organizers' nominee), Alexander Grischuk (replacement for Carlsen)

Candidates matches scheduled for April May 3rd to 27th, 2011 (Kazan, Russia).  First round pairings are...

First bracket

Topalov (BUL) - Kamsky (USA)
Gelfand (ISR) - Mamedyarov (AZE)

Second bracket

Kramnik (RUS) - Radjabov (AZE)
Aronian (ARM) - Grischuk (RUS)
The world championship match itself is scheduled to take place in 2012.  Let's see how long this goes without modification by FIDE.