The first round of the Candidates tournament in London, on March 15th, 2013 will see the games Aronian-Carlsen, Gelfand-Radjabov, Ivanchuk-Grischuk and Svidler-Kramnik. Nine days before the opening ceremony the full pairings were already published on the official website.

FIDE and AGON, the commercial partner of the World Chess Federation, will organize the strongest Candidates tournament in history in London. The tournament is an 8-player double round robin with 4 rest days. The dates are March 14th-April 2nd, 2013. The prize fund shared by the players totals € 510,000.

FIDE Candidates 2013 | Players

The following eight players qualified for the tournament:

• the top three player from the 2011 World Cup: Peter Svidler (2747, Russia), Alexander Grischuk (2764, Russia) and Vassily Ivanchuk (2757, Ukraine);
• the player who lost the 2012 World Championship Match: Boris Gelfand (2740, Israel);
• the top three players with the highest average FIDE rating on the July 2011 & January 2012 lists: Magnus Carlsen (2872, Norway), Vladimir Kramnik (2810, Russia) and Levon Aronian (2809, Armenia);
• one nominated player by the organiser: Teimour Radjabov (2793, Azerbaijan).

The winner of the Candidates will have the right to challenge World Champion Viswanathan Anand of India in a world title match which is scheduled to take place in November 2013. Anand has been World Champion since 2007, when he won the World Championship Tournament in Mexico City. He successfully defended his title against Vladimir Kramnik (Bonn, 2008), Veselin Topalov (Sofia, 2010) and Boris Gelfand (Moscow, 2012).

FIDE Candidates 2013 | Schedule

As could be read in the regulations (here in PDF), the draw for pairings and colours would be conducted in the FIDE office in Athens, one month before the start of the event. Yesterday they were published on the official website so we can repeat them below.

As you can see, the tournament starts with a bang with Aronian-Carlsen in round 1 and Carlsen-Kramnik in round 2! Aronian, who got lot number one, will play his first two games as White while Kramnik will start with two games as Black.

FIDE Candidates 2013 | Pairings

As we were told, FIDE had to perform the drawing of lots twice, to make sure that the three Russian players would play each other in rounds 1, 2, 3 and 8, 9, 10 (as stipulated in the regulations).

The venue is the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Savoy Place, London. The IET is the largest multidisciplinary professional engineering institution in the world. Savoy Place is one of its main offices, a large red brick building on the north bank of the River Thames. It is on a street called Savoy Place and Savoy Street runs along the side of the building up to the Strand.

Google Maps

Google Maps StreetView

Tickets can be purchased online here and at the venue during the tournament. The ticket price is between £ 25 (€ 30) and £ 30 (€ 35) depending on the day. There's also a "tournament pass" which gives access to the complete event, being sold at £ 200 (€ 230).

FIDE Candidates 2013 | Presentation

The chess world is anxiously awaiting the Candidates tournament, and not only because of the importance for the World Championship cycle. Assisted by design firm Pentagram and PR agency Mission, with this event AGON is supposed to start their revolutionary new coverage of chess as a sport, which we described here back in June.

(...) Condensed highlights will be shown on living room television sets, supported by interactive broadcast on the internet, iPads and smartphones. (...)

Its broadcast strategy will exploit the interactive potential of the internet and mobile technology, allowing fans to post live match commentary, monitor players’ heartbeats, track their eye movements over the board, and predict the next move.

We can't wait so see what will come of this, next week. In any case, ChessVibes will be present in London throughout the tournament to provide on-the-spot coverage!