2014 Candidates Preview

This article is an extract from the chess website bestofchess.com.... you can read the full article by clicking on the link below. The Candidates tournament is an eight player double round-robin event played over fourteen rounds in all. It will be held in the Russian city of Khanty Mansiysk from the 13th to the 30 th of march . The winner will challenge Magnus Carlsen in the world Championship that is to take place in November 2014.

This tournament will be one of the highest rated tournaments of this year with an average rating of 2766
and it will be very disputed with almost no favorite as all of the participant candidates are really sirious contenders

The Candidates

we almost must begin with the person who has been the World Chess Champion no fewer than five times.

Vishwanathan Anand

Qualified for the candidates tournament as the  finalist of the last world championship.

 Vladimir Kramnik

Qualified for the candidates tournament as being the Winner of the 2013 World Cup.

Dmitry Andreikin

Qualified for the candidates tournament as being the runner-up of the 2013 World Cup.

Veselin Topalov

Qualified for the candidates tournament as the Winner of the FIDE Grand Prix 2012-2013

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov

Qualified for the candidates tournament as the runner-up of the FIDE Grand Prix 2012-2013

Levon Aronian

Qualified for the candidates tournament on the basis of his FIDE rating

Sergey Karjakin

Qualified for the candidates tournament on the basis of his FIDE rating

Peter Svidler

Qualified for the candidates tournament as the wild card of the organizers.

Some specificities of the candidates tournament 

The time control for the event is two hours for the first 40 moves, one hour for the next 20 moves and then an additional 15 minutes up to the end of the game with 30 sec increment from move 61.

The minimum stipulated prize fund for the event was 420 thousand Euros but the organizers have done a great job of raising the total prize fund to 600 thousand Euros. First place is 135 thousand, and last place (8th) is 25 thousand.