Azerbaijani grandmaster to compete in FIDE Candidates Tournament

Wed 22 January 2014 05:43 GMT | 10:43 Local Time

Azerbaijani grandmaster Shahriyar Mammadyarov has confirmed his participation in the 2014 Candidates Tournament to be held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia in March.

FIDE announces that all qualifiers for the Candidates Tournament 2014 in Khanty-Mansiysk have confirmed their participation.

The other participants are Vladimir Kramnik, Dmitry Andreikin, Veselin Topalov, Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, Peter Svidler as a host nominee and the loser of this month`s World Championship Match Viswanathan Anand. After he lost the World Championship match to Magnus Carlsen in November, Anand said that he wasn`t sure if he would participate in Khanty. The 44-year-old Indian wanted to make up his mind after the Zurich Chess Challenge, which is played in the first week of February, but FIDE set a deadline on January 20th. If Anand had said no, Fabiano Caruana would have been his substitute.

The pairings will be announced by 13 February.

The World Chess Championship 2014 will be a match between the winner of the World Chess Championship 2013 (Viswanathan Anand or Magnus Carlsen) and a challenger, to determine the 2014 World Chess Champion.

The 2014 Candidates tournament will be a double round robin of 14 rounds.

The Candidates tournament traditionally attracts attention of chess enthusiasts around the world as it determines the next challenger to play for the world title against the current champion. This year, London hosted the Candidates tournament, and it drew an unprecedented attention – over a million people have watched the online broadcast of the first day matches.

Khanty-Mansiysk, about thousand miles away from Moscow, is well known for organization of the top chess events and has earned high reputation inside the chess community. The city hosted the 39th World Chess Olympiad in 2010, the Chess World Cup and Women World Championship in 2012 as well as the FIDE Rapid and Blitz World Championship in 2013,
AzerTAc reports.

Source: http://news.az

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