Russian Grandmasters Go to Starting Line of FIDE Candidates Tournaments
Round 1 will be played on 4 April.
The FIDE Candidates and the FIDE Women's Candidates Tournaments will be held in Toronto, Canada, from 3 April through 23 April. These competitions are the most important final stages of the World Championships cycles. The tournaments’ winners are entitled to qualify for to the World Championship matches (open and women's, respectively).
For the first time ever, the open and women's Candidate Tournaments will be held in the same location and at the same time.
The FIDE Candidates Tournament feature Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia), Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura (both of the USA), Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Santosh Gujarati, Dommaraju Gukesh (all three of India), Alireza Firouzja (France), and Nijat Abasov (Azerbaijan).
Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi has won the qualification tournaments twice in a row – in Yekaterinburg (2020/2021) and Madrid (2022) – but went down in the crown matches.
The participants of the women's competition are Aleksandra Goryachkina, Kateryna Lagno (both of Russia), Lei Tingjie, Tan Zhongyi (both of China), Humpy Koneru, Rameshbabu Vaishali (both of India), Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine), and Nurgyul Salimova (Bulgaria).
Russian Alexandra Goryachkina was the winner of the 2019 Candidates Tournament in Kazan, but in 2020 she went down to the current champion Ju Wenjun (China). Russian Kateryna Lagno reached the final of the 2018 Women's World Championship, in which she also lost to Ju Wenjun.
Game days:
4-7, 9-11, 13-15, 17-18, and 20-21 April. If the first place is shared, a tiebreak match is to take place on 22 April.
The games start at 2:30 PM local time (9:30 PM Moscow time).
Round 1 pairings (open):
Caruana – Nakamura
Abasov – Nepomniachtchi
Firouzja – Praggnanandhaa
Gukesh – Vidit
Round 1 pairings (women):
Goryachkina – Lagno
Muzychuk – Salimova
Lei Tingjie – Tan Zhongyi
Vaishali – Koneru
The prize pool of the competitions is 750 thousand euros (500 thousand in the open tournament and 250 thousand in the women's tournament).
