Candidates Chess Matches: Grischuk to play in place of Carlsen

Chess news and chess trivia blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010

Alexander Grischuk

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Hi Everyone,

The current Russian Chess Champion Alexander Grischuk Grischuk will be playing the Candidates matches in place of Magnus Carlsen. He is known for his blitz and had won the 2006 World Blitz Championship in Rishon Lezion, Israel with 10.5 points out of 15 games.

Meanwhile, here are some details of the Candidates Matches.

The candidates matches are currently scheduled to be held in April 2011. The challenger will be the winner of an eight-player candidates matches. In June 2009, FIDE indicated that the format would be matches. Originally, the intended venue for the candidate matches was Baku, but Levon Aronian announced that he would not play in Azerbaijan and matches involving him were to be held in a different country yet to be determined. This was changed to Kazan, Russia, in July 2010, but with the Azerbaijan nominee, Mamedyarov, remaining in the tournament.

Topalov has announced that he would not play in Russia against a Russian opponent, due to the unpleasant episodes which took place during the 2006 match against Kramnik.

Place	Qualifier
Winner of the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010	Levon Aronian
Runner-up of the FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2010	Teimour Radjabov
Third place of the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010	Alexander Grischuk (replacement for Carlsen)
Winner of the Chess World Cup 2009	Boris Gelfand
Loser of the World Chess Championship 2010match	Veselin Topalov
Loser of the 2009 Challenger Match	Gata Kamsky
The next two highest rated players in the world (average of July 2009 and January 2010 ratings)	Magnus Carlsen (withdrew)
	Vladimir Kramnik
Azerbaijan tournament organisers' nominee (must have Elo rating over 2700)	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov

Any player who withdraws is replaced by the next highest place-getter in the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010.

Pairings

According to FIDE, the loser of the World Chess Championship 2010 (Veselin Topalov) is seeded no: 1 and the rest according to FIDE January 2010 ratings. These regulations were laid down assuming that all the grand prix events were on schedule. That not being the case, it is not clear if the regulations will change. If Topalov refuses to play, he will be replaced by Dmitry Jakovenko. The matches are currently scheduled to be held in April 2011.

You can find lot many details at this very nice wikipedia page.

Summary of match formats

Regulations: 3. 1 Matches Format & System

A - First Round of Matches (8 players)

a1 - Matches System: The player who lost the World Championship Match 2010 (V. Anand or V. Topalov) is ranked No.1, the rest are ranked in rating order using the FIDE Rating List of January 2010. The players are paired the following way: 1 vs 8 (match 1), 2 vs 7 (match 2), 3 vs 6 (match 3), 4 vs 5 (match 4). Each match will consist of 4 games.

a2 - The four (4) winners will qualify for the second round of the Candidate Matches.

B - Second Round of Matches (4 players)

b1 - The Second Round of Matches will start 2 days after the end of the First Round. Any qualified player for the second round of the Candidates Matches can only be replaced by the player he defeated in the first round of the Candidate Matches.

b2 - Matches System: The players are ranked according to the results of the first round of the Candidates Matches: winner of match 1 is No.1, winner of match 2 is No.2, winner of match 3 is No.3 and winner of match 4 is No.4. The players are paired the following way: 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3. Each match will consist of 4 games.

b3 - The two (2) winners will qualify for the third round of the Candidate Matches.

C - Third Round of Matches (2 players)

c1 - The Third Round of Matches will start 2 days after the end of the Second Round. Any qualified player for the third round of the Candidates Matches can only be replaced by the player he defeated in the second round of the Candidates Matches.

c2 - Matches System: The match between the two players will consist of 6 games.

c3 - The winner will qualify for the World Championship Match.

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