The 2020–2021 Candidates Tournament was an eight-player chess double-round-robin tournament to decide the challenger for the World Chess Championship 2021, played in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Ian Nepomniachtchi won the tournament with a round to spare and earned the right to challenge the defending world champion, Magnus Carlsen.
The first half of the tournament was played from 17 to 25 March 2020. It was suspended at the halfway point due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the second half of the tournament played from 19 to 27 April 2021. Over 13 months from beginning to end, it is believed to be the longest over-the-board chess tournament in history.Candidates Round 14: Ding, MVL and Alekseenko finish on a high note, Chessbase, 28 April 2021
Participants The qualifiers for the Candidates Tournament were:Bidding Procedure for the FIDE Candidates' Tournament 2020, FIDE, 8 March 2020Regulations for the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2020, FIDE
+ Qualification method Player Age Rating Worldranking (March 2020)Top 100 Players March 2020 - Archive , FIDE 2018 World Championship runner-up Fabiano Caruana 27 2842 2 The top two finishers at the Chess World Cup 2019 Teimour Radjabov 33 2765 9 Ding Liren 27 2805 3 The top finisher in the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019 Wang Hao 30 2762 12 The top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2019 Alexander Grischuk 36 2777 4 Ian Nepomniachtchi 29 2774 5 Highest average rating Anish Giri 25 2763 11 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 29 2767 8 Wild card chosen by organizer, subject to eligibility criteria Kirill Alekseenko 22 2698 39
The regulations stated that if one or more players declined the invitation to play in the Candidates Tournament, the players with the next highest average ratings would qualify. On 6 March, this rule was used to select Vachier-Lagrave, after Radjabov withdrew.
Compared to previous cycles (2014, 2016, 2018), the Grand Swiss was a new addition, and the number of qualifiers by rating was reduced from two to one. The format of the Grand Prix tournament was also changed.
Qualifier by rating The qualifier on rating was the player with the highest average rating for the 12 ratings periods from February 2019 to January 2020, who did not qualify by another method. To be eligible, a player must have played at least 30 games during the 12 ratings periods, and at least 18 in the final 6 ratings periods.
The following table shows the ratings of the players with the top average ratings from February 2019 to January 2020.FIDE Top 100 lists for 2019: February , March , April , May , June , July , August , September , October , November , December ; January 2020 It includes the first eleven players except for world champion Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana (who qualified as the 2018 challenger), Ding Liren (who qualified as a finalist of the 2019 World Cup), Alexander Grischuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi (the winner and runner-up of the 2019 FIDE Grand Prix). All of the players in the table met the above game count requirements.
The qualifier by rating was Anish Giri. Since Radjabov withdrew, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave also ended up qualifying by rating.
Player Feb 2019 Mar 2019 Apr 2019 May 2019 Jun 2019 Jul 2019 Aug 2019 Sep 2019 Oct 2019 Nov 2019 Dec 2019 Jan 2020 Average Rating 4 Anish Giri 2797 2797 2797 2787 2779 2779 2779 2780 2780 2776 2769 2768 2782.33 5 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2780 2775 2773 2780 2779 2775 2778 2774 2774 2777 2780 2770 2776.25 6 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2790 2790 2793 2781 2774 2765 2764 2767 2767 2772 2772 2770 2775.42 9 Viswanathan Anand 2779 2779 2774 2774 2767 2764 2756 2765 2765 2757 2757 2758 2766.25 10 Levon Aronian 2767 2761 2763 2762 2752 2756 2765 2758 2758 2772 2775 2773 2763.50 11 Wesley So 2765 2762 2762 2754 2754 2763 2776 2767 2767 2760 2760 2765 2762.91
Wild card One wild card was selected by the organizer. This player must have participated in at least two of the three qualifying tournaments (World Cup, Grand Swiss and Grand Prix) and also must have met one of the following conditions: highest non-qualifier in the World Cup and also in the final 4 of the World Cup; highest non-qualifier in the Grand Swiss or Grand Prix; or in the top 10 by average rating from February 2019 to January 2020.
Four players were eligible:Chess: France’s top player clings to a slender hope of Candidates place, Leonard Barden, The Guardian, 20 December 2019 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (third in the World Cup, third in the Grand Prix, fifth on the rating list); Kirill Alekseenko (highest non-qualifier in the Grand Swiss and also played in the World Cup); Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (sixth on the rating list, played in the World Cup and Grand Prix) and Levon Aronian (tenth on the rating list, played in the World Cup and Grand Prix). Viswanathan Anand was ninth on the rating list but only participated in the Grand Swiss, and thus was ineligible to be picked as the wild card player.
On 11 November 2019, Andrey Filatov, the president of the Russian Chess Federation, announced the intention to use the wild card to choose a Russian player, stating: "The decision to host this event in Russia guarantees that there will be a Russian player participating. We’re still considering different options how we’ll choose a Russian wild-card, but it will probably be a match or match-tournament with Kirill Alekseenko [...]." At the time of the announcement no Russian had qualified for the Candidates; and Alekseenko, Grischuk and Nepomniachtchi were sure to be eligible for the wild card, although the latter two also had a chance to qualify via the Grand Prix.
On 22 December 2019, the Grand Prix results were finalised, with Grischuk and Nepomniachtchi qualifying, meaning Alekseenko was the only Russian eligible for the wild card.Ian Nepomniachtchi wins Jerusalem Grand Prix, qualifies to Candidates, Chessbase, 23 December 2019
On 23 December 2019, the Russian Chess Federation officially nominated Kirill Alekseenko as the wild card.
On the same day, managers of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave expressed their concern with the current FIDE rules in an open letter to the Russian Chess Federation, asking to organize a match between Vachier-Lagrave and Alekseenko for their wild card placement,Vachier-Lagrave appeals for Candidates wild card, Chessbase, 23 December 2019 on the basis that Vachier-Lagrave was eligible for the wild card in three different ways. However, Alekseenko was confirmed as the wild card. Alekseenko himself encouraged the abolition of the wild card in a later interview.
Organization The tournament was an eight-player, double-round-robin tournament, meaning there were 14 rounds with each player facing each other twice: once with the black pieces and once with the white pieces. The tournament winner qualified to play Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship late in 2021.
Regulations The time control was 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game; plus a 30-second increment per move starting from move 1.
In the event of a tie, tie breaks were applied in the following order: 1) head-to-head score among tied players, 2) total number of wins, 3) Sonneborn–Berger score (SB), 4) rapid chess tie-break games (for first place only). If more than two players were tied for first after the first three tie-break methods, then the two players to play the tie-break were to be decided by lot.
The prize money was: €48,000 for first place, €36,000 for second place, €24,000 for third place (with players on the same number of points sharing prize money, irrespective of tie-breaks); plus €7,000 per point for every player; giving a total prize pool of €500,000.
Schedule FIDE announced the pairings on 14 February 2020. The original schedule had the final round on 3 April and the closing ceremony on 4 April 2020. The revised schedule was announced on 16 February 2021.
All games began at 16:00 local time (11:00 UTC), except Round 14, which began at 15:00 local time (10:00 UTC).
Players from the same country had to play each other in the earlier rounds. Ding Liren and Wang Hao played each other in rounds 1 and 8; while Grischuk, Nepomniachtchi and Alekseenko played each other in rounds 1 to 3 and rounds 8 to 10.
Date Day Event 16 March 2020 Monday Opening ceremony 17 March 2020 Tuesday Round 1 18 March 2020 Wednesday Round 2 19 March 2020 Thursday Round 3 20 March 2020 Friday Rest day 21 March 2020 Saturday Round 4 22 March 2020 Sunday Round 5 23 March 2020 Monday Round 6 24 March 2020 Tuesday Rest day 25 March 2020 Wednesday Round 7 Date Day Event 19 April 2021 Monday Round 8 20 April 2021 Tuesday Round 9 21 April 2021 Wednesday Round 10 22 April 2021 Thursday Rest day 23 April 2021 Friday Round 11 24 April 2021 Saturday Round 12 25 April 2021 Sunday Rest day 26 April 2021 Monday Round 13 27 April 2021 Tuesday Round 14 28 April 2021 Wednesday Tie breaks (if required) Closing ceremony
Impact of coronavirus on the tournament
Ding Liren and Wang Hao The COVID-19 pandemic, which was mainly confined to China in January and early February 2020, affected the preparation of the Chinese players, Wang Hao and Ding Liren. On 10 February, both players admitted that they cancelled their training camps and had to prepare online with their assistants: Ding Liren was training in his home city of Wenzhou; while Wang Hao was out of China, and planned to only briefly return to China before the Candidates.Coronavirus Affecting Chinese Candidates Preparation, chess.com, 10 February 2020Corona virus threatening the Candidates: Can Ding Liren and Wang Hao make it?, Perlen vom Bodensee – das Schachmagazin, 4 February 2020 Wang Hao later decided to not return to China at all before the tournament.
On 19 February, Russia announced a partial ban on Chinese nationals entering the country due to the coronavirus outbreak in China. FIDE announced that the Chinese delegation was travelling on humanitarian visas and therefore would be permitted to enter Russia, but they were advised to come "well in advance" before the tournament.Statement regarding the Chinese delegation for the Candidates tournament, FIDE, 19 Feb 2020
On 2 March, Ding Liren and his team passed the Russian border control in Moscow and went to an isolated cottage house at the outskirts of Moscow, for two weeks of medical quarantine and observation before the start of the tournament.FIDE announcement, Twitter, 3 March 2020
Radjabov withdraws, replaced by Vachier-Lagrave On 6 March, citing concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic and FIDE's handling of the related risk-management, Teimour Radjabov withdrew from the tournament. His place was filled by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, as he was next on the qualifier by rating list.
Radjabov had asked FIDE to postpone the event due to the coronavirus outbreak.Radjabov withdraws from Candidates, Vachier-Lagrave to jump in, Chessbase, 6 March 2020 FIDE responded that this could not be done "legally and practically", and gave Radjabov until 6 March to confirm his participation; Radjabov responded by formally withdrawing.Regarding my withdrawal from the tournament..., Teymur Rajabov, Instagram, 7 March 2020
FIDE's new regulations on playing conditions On 6 March, FIDE announced that the tournament could only be postponed by order of the Russian authorities, and stated this again on 14 March: "It is not the responsibility of FIDE to cancel FIDE-rated tournaments in any given Federation. Each Federation may take their own decisions ..."
FIDE also announced health and safety measures, including screening of visitors for body temperature, and making handshakes optional.
If one of the players would test positive for COVID-19, the tournament would be stopped immediately and resumed later in the year, with points counting from games already played.The #Candidates2020 protocol for coronavirus is as follows:, Ian Rogers, Twitter, 18 March 2020
FIDE suspends the tournament