Candidates Tournament 2020–2021
The qualifiers for the Candidates Tournament were:[6][7]
The regulations stated that if one or more players declined the invitation to play in the Candidates Tournament, the players with the next highest average ratings would qualify. On 6 March, this rule was used to select Vachier-Lagrave, after Radjabov withdrew.
Compared to previous cycles (2014, 2016, 2018), the Grand Swiss was a new addition, and the number of qualifiers by rating was reduced from two to one. The format of the Grand Prix tournament was also changed.
Qualifier by rating
The qualifier on rating was the player with the highest average rating for the 12 ratings periods from February 2019 to January 2020, who did not qualify by another method. To be eligible, a player must have played at least 30 games during the 12 ratings periods, and at least 18 in the final 6 ratings periods.[7]
The following table shows the ratings of the players with the top average ratings from February 2019 to January 2020.[12] It includes the first eleven players except for world champion Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana (who qualified as the 2018 challenger), Ding Liren (who qualified as a finalist of the 2019 World Cup), Alexander Grischuk and Ian Nepomniachtchi (the winner and runner-up of the 2019 FIDE Grand Prix). All of the players in the table met the above game count requirements.
The qualifier by rating was Anish Giri.
Wild card
One wild card was selected by the organizer. This player must have participated in at least two of the three qualifying tournaments (World Cup, Grand Swiss and Grand Prix) and also must have met one of the following conditions: highest non-qualifier in the World Cup and also in the final 4 of the World Cup; highest non-qualifier in the Grand Swiss or Grand Prix; or in the top 10 by average rating from February 2019 to January 2020.[citation needed]
Four players were eligible:[13] Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (third in the World Cup, third in the Grand Prix, fifth on the rating list); Kirill Alekseenko (highest non-qualifier in the Grand Swiss and also played in the World Cup); Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (sixth on the rating list, played in the World Cup and Grand Prix) and Levon Aronian (tenth on the rating list, played in the World Cup and Grand Prix). Viswanathan Anand was ninth on the rating list but only participated in the Grand Swiss, and thus was ineligible to be picked as the wild card player.[citation needed]
On 11 November 2019, Andrey Filatov, the president of the Russian Chess Federation, announced the intention to use the wild card to choose a Russian player, stating: "The decision to host this event in Russia guarantees that there will be a Russian player participating. We’re still considering different options how we’ll choose a Russian wild-card, but it will probably be a match or match-tournament with Kirill Alekseenko [...]."[1] At the time of the announcement no Russian had qualified for the Candidates; and Alekseenko, Grischuk and Nepomniachtchi were sure to be eligible for the wild card, although the latter two also had a chance to qualify via the Grand Prix.[citation needed]
On 22 December 2019, the Grand Prix results were finalised, with Grischuk and Nepomniachtchi qualifying, meaning Alekseenko was the only Russian eligible for the wild card.[14][15]
On 23 December 2019, the Russian Chess Federation officially nominated Kirill Alekseenko as the wild card.[11]
On the same day, managers of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave expressed their concern with the current FIDE rules in an open letter to the Russian Chess Federation, asking to organize a match between Vachier-Lagrave and Alekseenko for their wild card placement,[16] on the basis that Vachier-Lagrave was eligible for the wild card in three different ways.[17] However, Alekseenko was confirmed as the wild card. Alekseenko himself encouraged the abolition of the wild card in a later interview.[18
