The 2022 Candidates Starts Tomorrow: A Look Ahead (Updated)

(Originally posted here. Please subscribe at my Substack blog, where my posts will be published first.)

Candidates tournaments (and sometimes matches) are designed to select the challenger for the next world championship match, though on at least three occasions something went awry between the two stages. In 1974, Anatoly Karpov edged Viktor Korchnoi 12.5-11.5 in the Candidates final to earn a match with Bobby Fischer, but when Fischer proposed terms that were unacceptable to FIDE he was eventually stripped of his title, making the Karpov-Korchnoi match the de facto World Championship.

In 1993, Nigel Short defeated Jan Timman in their Candidates final to earn a match with Garry Kasparov. That match did occur, but they broke off from FIDE, who promptly had Timman and Short’s victim in the Candidates semi-final, Karpov, face off for a competing World Championship match. The split was only repaired in 2006.

In 1998, Alexei Shirov and Vladimir Kramnik faced off for the right to play Kasparov in the non-FIDE branch of the World Championship. Shirov defeated Kramnik, but when Kasparov couldn’t find organizers to pay as much as he thought the match merited he eventually dropped Shirov as a challenger, tried to recruit Viswanathan Anand, and then finally played…you guessed it, Kramnik, who defeated him.

So why do I bring up these cases where the Candidates in some way or other failed to properly connect with the World Championship? It’s because the current champion, Magnus Carlsen, has suggested that he may not play the winner of this Candidates event, unless perhaps his challenger is the young French (by way of Iran) star Alireza Firouzja. So it might turn out that what we’re calling the Candidates will in retrospect prove to be the World Championship.

In all of the cases above, the Candidates winner was determined by a series of knockout matches, but for the last few cycles FIDE has used a tournament format, a double round-robin with eight players. Those eight players, and the basis of their qualification, are as follows:

1. Ian Nepomniachtchi (the losing finalist in the last World Championship match)

2. Teimour Radjabov (FIDE compensation for his missing out on the last Candidates due to his protest concerning their COVID policy)

3. Jan-Krzysztof Duda (winner of the 2021 World Cup)

4. Alireza Firouzja (winner of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss)

5. Fabiano Caruana (runner-up of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss)

6. Hikaru Nakamura (winner of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix)

7. Richard Rapport (runner-up of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix)

8. Ding Liren (rating qualifier, replacing Sergey Karjakin, who had qualified as the runner-up of the 2021 World Cup but was banned due to his remarks in favor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine)

So that’s who’s playing. Now for the event specifics: Play will run from tomorrow, June 17 through July 4, in Madrid, Spain. There will be one round a day for three consecutive days, followed by a rest day. There will be 14 rounds, and - a wonderful change - in case there’s a tie for first there will be a playoff on July 5. This is a huge improvement over the previous policy of settling things by tiebreaks, which led to tragic last rounds in 2013 and 2016.

The tournament website is here, and these are the pairings for round 1, which starts tomorrow at 15:00 CEST (= 9 a.m. ET in the U.S.):

Duda - Rapport

Ding Liren - Nepomniachtchi

Caruana - Nakamura

Radjabov - Firouzja

Note that the Caruana-Nakamura pairing has to take place in round 1 (and the reverse pairing in round 8) because of the long-running FIDE rule that players from the same country must face off at the start of each cycle. This is a very good rule, designed to prevent collusion. It’s not that there’s any reason to think that Caruana would throw a game to Nakamura or vice-versa. There’s no reason to doubt either player’s integrity, and as far as I’m aware they aren’t friends (I don’t mean that they’re enemies, only that they aren’t particularly close), but it’s best to avoid the appearance and the temptation for wrongdoing. (FIDE didn’t seem particularly worried about this when it came to Ding Liren’s string of all-Chinese tournaments when he was trying to qualify for the Candidates, but their lapse there doesn’t obviate the fact that it’s a good rule in the Candidates and for norm events.)

Finally, let’s offer predictions, or most modestly, some preliminary thoughts.

Nepomniachtchi: He is strong enough to win - he won the last Candidates, after all - and he will have a large store of ideas from the work he did for his match with Carlsen. On the other hand, he got bruised pretty badly by Carlsen, and he may not have recovered his confidence. If he gets off to an excellent start he’ll have a shot, but I think he’s unlikely to win.

Radjabov: Virtually no chance.

Duda: He is a dangerous player, capable of beating anyone and everyone. I wouldn’t call him the favorite, but I would not be too surprised if he won the event.

Firouzja: When it comes to talent and strength, he is definitely one of the favorites. On paper, it’s between him, Ding Liren, and Fabiano Caruana. His most recent performance wasn’t fantastic, though, and he has shown nerves in high-pressure situations. Only 18 (he turns 19 on Sunday), his lack of experience may prove his undoing. If he doesn’t become the champion this time around, I’d expect him to be the favorite the next time around. He might win this time, too—hopefully it will come down to chess and not to some psychological disaster.

Caruana: If he can recover his best form, he is the favorite, period. Even if he’s only playing reasonably well, I expect him to be in the running to the end.

Nakamura: He was #2 in the world at one point, and he is the world’s #2 in rapid and #1 in blitz. He is capable of just about anything, and he is a great competitor. He is resilient, tricky, and confident, and if he gets off to a good start he’ll have a chance.

Rapport: Easily underestimated, he was #5 in the world a month ago and is still #8. He hasn’t won many elite events, and his penchant for offbeat openings makes it easy to underestimate him. I expect him to be in the middle-to-upper middle of the pack, but would be surprised to see him win.

Ding Liren: It’s hard to know what kind of form he’s in, as the slew of games he played a couple of months ago to qualify were low pressure games, and almost entirely against non-elite opposition. (Only Wei Yi was over 2700, if I recall correctly.) Nevertheless, he is the world’s #2 player at the moment, and is to my mind the co-favorite with Caruana.

In sum, if Caruana plays his best chess, he wins. If not, then he’s a co-favorite with Ding, with Firouzja having a chance if he can overcome his sometimes shaky nerves and his lack of experience. Duda and Nakamura are my dark horses, Nepo and Rapport are very unlikely to win but are strong enough to do it if everything goes right, and Radjabov…will not win.

Of course, predictions are nonsense - even my prediction about Radjabov is nonsense. Let’s see whose nonsense comes closest: predict away!

Update: The date for the start of play has been corrected - it is June 17 (Friday), not June 16 (Thursday).

Karjakin Loses His Appeal (in Two Senses)

On May 6, the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission dismissed Sergey Karjakin's appeal. That appeal challenged FIDE's 6-month ban for his breach of article 2.2.10 - essentially for his very public support of P****n's invasion of Ukraine. The ban means that Karjakin won't be able to play in the 2022 Candidates, slated to start in mid-June; his slot, as most of you already know, is going to Ding Liren. Karjakin does have one last means of appeal, if he chooses to use it: the Court of Arbitration of Sport.

Karjakin has done a fine job of making himself a pariah, but he has decided to double down with a weird prank, getting a couple of his friends to call FIDE Director General Emil Sutovsky, posing as the Ukrainian Minister of Sport. Having watched the video, the only thing that they did that could have really damaged Sutovsky, had he fallen for it, was their Borat-like attempt to get him to go along with promoting a chess event not with the Ukrainian army in general, but with the Azov fighters. That group is the one segment in Ukraine that has had some connection to anti-Semitism, which is part of P***n's pitiful "justification" for the war. Sutovsky didn't bite, so as far as I can tell Karjakin achieved nothing for the home crowd while making himself look even worse to the rest of the world.

It's a pity that Karjakin holds his reprehensible views, and a shame that he either lacks anyone with sense to counsel him, or that he simply ignores those people.

Ding Liren Gets to 30

Or rather, 32! He had played four games over the course of (most of) the past year, and needed to get in 30 games to be eligible for the Candidates later this year. He did it, playing a remarkable 28 Classical games in 28 days, going unbeaten throughout against players rated from 2564 to 2729. He gained 7.2 points, and will be rated 2806 at the start of May. This will put him in the Candidates unless Sergey Karjakin's six-month ban is overturned.

To recap earlier information, then, these are the Candidates (starting June 16):

Ian Nepomniachtchi (2021 World Championship runner-up), Teimour Radjabov (FIDE nominee, compensating for his refusal to play in the 2020 Candidates over COVID risks), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (World Cup winner), Alireza Firouzja (Grand Swiss winner), Fabiano Caruana (Grand Swiss runner-up), Hikaru Nakamura (Grand Prix winner), Richard Rapport (Grand Prix runner-up), and either Ding Liren (highest rated eligible player as of May 2022) or, if reinstated, Sergey Karjakin (World Cup runner-up).

Ding Liren Nearing Qualification

As most if not all of you know by now, Sergey Karjakin is on the outs for the 2022 Candidates tournament (scheduled for Madrid, Spain, starting June 16). After his asinine statements in support of the despicable Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIDE banned from official FIDE-rated events for six months, a time frame that includes the Candidates. As disgusting as his comments were and are - and I was critical of his being a Putin fanboy years before Russia's latest act of aggression against Ukraine (no ban for Karjakin's overtly pro-Putin stance after the latter's earlier invasions of Ukraine and Georgia?) - I don't like this precedent. The history of chess is full of terrible politics and misdeeds by individuals who didn't receive bans; what makes Karjakin so special?

Karjakin has appealed the ban, but assuming it stands, the player with the best rating at the end of this month gets it - provided he has played in at least 30 classical games over the past year. Ding Liren has the rating with room to spare, with a 30 point lead over Levon Aronian, but because of China's COVID restrictions he has had far fewer opportunities to play than most of his rivals. That insulated his high rating from harm, but also meant that he needed to get in 26 games from the time of Karjakin's disqualification in March until the end of this month.

Needless to say, it has happened - or rather, has been happening, though it's not quite finished. First, there was a four player quadruple round-robin. He defeated all his rivals with 3.5-.5 scores, going 10.5/12 overall and picking up around 12 points for his trouble. Then there was a six-game match with Wei Yi. The first five games were drawn before Ding won the finale, losing just one rating point overall. That left eight games to go, and he'll get that with two games to spare in the last event, which is ongoing, a six player double-round robin. So far he's 2-1, down one rating point.

All told, as of this writing he's undefeated in 21 games and has gained around 10 points - a very impressive result, to put it mildly. He is and has been one of the world's best players for years, so it's not as if the result is beyond belief; nevertheless, the whole affair is ethically iffy. Granted, Ding's situation is unfortunate, but there are good reasons why FIDE does not accept events where all the players are from the same country (except for events like national championships) for round-robin norm tournaments, and forces Candidates from the same country to play each other in the first games of each cycle. Even if all the players are as honest as can be, the incentives lend themselves to fishy outcomes. (Read works on Soviet chess for endless examples of such chicanery.)

Anyway, here are a couple of Ding's recent games. The first is his win in the last game of the match with Wei Yi, and the second game - also against Wei Yi - is a draw from the ongoing event. Both are interesting, albeit in very different ways. Have a look.

What's New in the Chess World?

At the moment, not much! It's a rare lull in the chess world, but it won't be for long. Other than Ding Liren (we'll have a separate post on his adventures shortly), the top players have been out of action for a little while. This will change in a few days.

First, the U.S. will have a super-strong event for its best players (except for Hikaru Nakamura, who was presumably invited and turned the invitation down so he could stream and prepare for the Candidates) in the 2022 American Cup. It starts April 20 (administratively, it starts on Monday, the 18th, but they don't play until Wednesday), and is an eight-player, double-elimination event with a 90'+30" time control unless one is in the elimination bracket, and in that case it's 25'+10". (Seems confusing, but I'm sure all will be clear once the event is underway.)

Anyway, it's a great field, with Levon Aronian (2785), Fabiano Caruana (2781), Wesley So (2778), Leinier Dominguez (2756), Sam Shankland (2709), Sam Sevian (2693), Jeffery Xiong (2685), and Ray Robson (2681). (The next Olympiad is looking tough for countries that aren't the U.S. - but then the Voldemorts Russians were favored every time for a decade or so without winning, so one never knows.)

Once that's over, a pair of Grand Chess Tour events will soon follow: a classical tournament in Bucharest and then a rapid & blitz contest in Warsaw. Magnus Carlsen won't be in either event, but the rest of the top ten (except for Anish Giri) will be participating in one or the other, or both, including Alireza Firouzja; top Americans Aronian, Caruana, So, and Dominguez; Candidates Ian Nepomniachtchi and Richard Rapport; former World Champion Viswanathan Anand; perennial superstar Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and so on.

A week after that's finished, it's time for Norway Chess, and Carlsen and Giri - and many other great players - will be participating. Veselin Topalov hasn't been so active in recent years, even before COVID, but he'll be giving it a go.

Once that's over: the Candidates. Both Rapport and Teimour Radjabov are playing there straight after Norway Chess, which is an interesting decision to say the least. In fact, Rapport is playing in every one of the aforementioned events, except of course for the American Cup. Will he have any energy - and opening prep - left by the time he gets to the Candidates?

Candidates Catch-Up

I had all sorts of technical difficulties with the blog in early February that did not quickly resolve themselves, and other matters took up a good deal of my time afterwards. So while it would be slightly ridiculous to try to catch up in any sort of detailed way on what has happened over the last two months or so, it is worth a quick summary of where things stand with this year's forthcoming Candidates tournament, scheduled for June 16 to July 5 of this year in Madrid, Spain.

When we left off, six of the eight slots had been taken:

1. Ian Nepomniachtchi, by virtue of being a finalist in the last world championship.

2. Teimour Radjabov, selected by FIDE as compensation for his missing out on the previous Candidates due to his concerns about COVID, concerns which proved fully justified.

3. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, the winner of the 2021 Chess World Cup.

4. Sergey Karjakin, the runner-up of the 2021 Chess World Cup.

5. Alireza Firouzja, the winner of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss.

6. Fabiano Caruana, the runner-up of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss.

Two spots remained, for the top two finishers of the FIDE Grand Prix. This was a series of three tournaments held from February 4 through April 4. 24 players qualified, and each would play in two of the three tournaments (set up so that each event would have 16 players). Alert readers will notice that it's not yet April 4. This is true, but although the third event is still ongoing the top two players have already clinched their spots:

7. Hikaru Nakamura, the winner of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix, and

8. Richard Rapport, the runner-up of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix.

As most if not all of you probably know by now, however, Sergey Karjakin has received a six-month suspension from FIDE for his inflammatory remarks in support of Putin's war on Ukraine, and is thus ineligible for the Candidates. This decision is being appealed, but unless it is overturned FIDE must choose another Candidate. I don't know if they considered selecting another player from the World Cup, but because of various aspects of its format that would be a complicated procedure, to put it mildly*.

What FIDE decided instead is to reinstate a criterion used for previous Candidates; namely, to invite the player with the highest rating on the May 2022 list, provided that he has played at least 30 games rated in the period from June of 2021 through this May. That player is almost certainly going to be Ding Liren, though this too has an element of farce to it. Ding had played a grand total of four, count 'em, four rated games from June '21 through (almost) the end of March. Once FIDE's decision came down, however, China hastily arranged an event against the Washington Generals three other Chinese GMs who have so far managed a total of two draws between them out of nine games. If, by some miracle, Ding doesn't get to a total of 30 games, or if his opponents somehow get on a hot streak and lower his rating by 30 points, Levon Aronian would be the qualifier. That's unlikely, but perhaps USCF and/or Rex Sinquefield can find a group of retired, or unambitious, or cognitively impaired American GMs who would be willing to participate in similar tournaments with Aronian. Depending on how patriotic Chinese and American players decide to be, someone might beat Magnus Carlsen to 2900.

Semi-jokes aside, then, and assuming Karjakin is out and Ding gets his games in, we'll have Nepo, Rajdabov, Duda, Ding, Firouzja, Caruana, Nakamura, and Rapport in the Candidates. And then the next controversy will be figuring out what happens if Carlsen decides he's not interested in playing the world championship match if Firouzja isn't the winner. But one controversy at a time...

*For one thing, the third place finisher was Magnus Carlsen, thanks to the monumentally stupid and unjust FIDE policy of allowing the world champion to play. It is difficult to understand the asininity of allowing the world champion to play in an event whose primary function is to select players for the Candidates, but that's a rant for another time. Another difficulty is that because it's a knockout event, is it really clear which of Karjakin's defeated opponents - assuming we select on that basis - is most deserving? The player he defeated in the semi-final was Vladimir Fedoseev, 1.5-.5, but is more deserving than his quarterfinal opponent, Sam Shankland, who lost in a rapid playoff by a 4-2 score? Or eighth-final opponent Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who only lost 3.5-2.5? I think problems like this are a good reason to only choose *one* qualifier from this event, period (not just in this special circumstance), and to NOT permit the world champion - or any other already-qualified Candidate - to participate.

World Cup Finale: Duda, Karjakin Qualify for the 2022 Candidates

Again, just tidying up on ancient history: Jan Krzysztof Duda finished the tournament of his young life - thus far - in fantastic style, defeated World Champion Magnus Carlsen in the semi-finals of the World Cup to qualify for next year's Candidates, while Sergey Karjakin also qualified by meeting Duda there. Duda won that final match to win the event, garnering more money and more prestige, but both players succeeded in their primary aim.

This means that half the eight Candidates' spots are settled. In addition to Duda and Karjakin, one spot will go to the loser of the world championship match between Carlsen and challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi in November, and another is going to Teimour Radjabov (as compensation for his not playing in the 2020 Candidates).

In the old days (e.g. the previous cycle) one slot would be allocated by rating, but unfortunately for (most likely) Fabiano Caruana, that is no longer the case. Two spots will be allocated to the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament (starting October 25 in Riga) and two more spots go to the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix (a series of three tournaments to be played between February and April of next year in Berlin; 24 players will qualify for this series, with each playing in two of the three events).

I congratulate FIDE on their continual improvements on the world championship cycle. In the old days, the world's best players were the most likely to get a shot at becoming the world champion. Those foolish days are long gone - Caissa has been deposed, and replaced by the worship of Tyche.