Monday
Mar052012
Candidates Event Officially Set
Monday, March 5, 2012 at 11:01PM
Not much news: the lineup has been known for some time now (Carlsen, Aronian and Kramnik by rating; Svidler, Grischuk and Ivanchuk from the last World Cup; Radjabov as an organizer's pick and the loser of the forthcoming Anand-Gelfand world championship match) and the venue has been known too (London, though under some protest). What's new are that it's all official now, complete with dates: October 24 to November 12 of this year.
Reader Comments (2)
So, forgive me for not being in touch with latest news but did Carlsen change his mind about Candidates event? Is he playing this time? Thanks much.
[DM: Correct; this time he's playing. (At least he has said he would, but as far as I know no contracts have been signed yet.)]
More precisely, Carlsen said something like "I will play the candidates event if conditions are satisfactory". Given that the event is now scheduled ten days after Bilbao and Carlsen complained about this, he might still drop out, i.e. not sign the contract?
On TWIC, the Bilbao organizers have now revealed that "Sao Paulo, almost with complete certainty, will host again the first half, as in 2011." They enlisted the support of Kramnik for their demand that FIDE postpones the candidates event - but it's known that Kramnik doesn't like intercontinental chess events (he declined the Bilbao invitation last year and never played Morelia-Linares).
[DM: I took Carlsen's qualifier to refer to the fairness (as he sees it) of the Candidates' format rather than $$$ and scheduling, but I might be wrong. As for Bilbao, who knows if it will even happen?]