15 June 2022

FIDE Candidates Tournament Begins in Madrid

First games will be played on 17 June.

Photo: FIDE
Photo: FIDE


The FIDE Candidates Tournament will be held in the Spanish capital from 16 June to 5 July, 2022. The competition is a double round-robin event (14 rounds) featuring Ding Liren (2806, China), Alireza Firouzja (2793, France), Fabiano Caruana (2783, USA), Ian Nepomniachtchi (2766, FIDE), Richard Rapport (2764, Hungary), Hikaru Nakamura (2760, USA), Teimour Radjabov (2753, Azerbaijan), and Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2750, Poland). 

The match days are 17-19, 21-23, 25-27, and 29-30 June, 1 and 3-4 July. In case of a tie for first place in the Candidates Tournament, a play-off will be played on 5 July. The games will begin at 4 PM Moscow time. 

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move 61.

Round 1 pairings: 

Duda - Rapport, Ding - Nepomniachtchi, Caruana - Nakamura, and Radjabov - Firouzja. 

The total prize fund is € 500,000. The winner of the Candidates Tournament qualifies for the World Championship Match. 

Official website