A few non-active chessplayers I know (one can never truly be an ex-chessplayer) were surprised when I mentioned the Candidates tournament was starting soon. At least one was under the impression that such events had been confined to the pages of history, which is understandable given the chopping and changing of formats over the last 20 years.
However the event is really taking place, and starts on the 14th of March (first round is on the 15th). It is almost a return to the traditional Candidates format, although it is only a double round robin, rather than the quadruple round robin in the 50's and 60's. I'm also assuming that there won't be any 50's style 'teamwork' either, given the make-up of the field.
Magnus Carlsen is the rating favourite to win, and certainly my tip. Of course I will also be cheering on Lev Aronian, while Vladimir Kramnik is also a potential winner. Teimour Radjabov looks like the dark horse in the field, but I cannot see the other four players (Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Svidler and Grischuk) scoring an unlikely victory.
The tournament website seems a little sparse at the moment, but surely this will change closer to the start of the event.
1 comment:
Hi Shaun,
To call the web-site "sparse" is to be far too polite - it is a disgrace. I was intending to go over to spectate, but the total lack of information put me off. So I wrote to the contact person, and (to my surprise) he replied; and it seems that their main website is at http://london2013.fide.com. (Note that there's no "www" - contrary to what I was told in the email. It's a bit worrying that their contact person doesn't even know their own web address.) There's no information there at all about what spectators can expect, but - from your point of view - it seems that this is where they will be hosting live games.
Hope the event is better organized than the web site(s).
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