In Berlin, Germany from March 10-28 there will be a Candidates Tournament held whereupon the winner will face off with Magnus Carlsen in November for the World Championship.

Participants:

Sergey Karjakin - 2763 FIDE
Levon Aronian - 2794 FIDE
Ding Liren - 2769 FIDE
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov - 2809 FIDE
Alexander Grischuk - 2767 FIDE
Fabiano Caruana - 2784 FIDE
Wesley So - 2799 FIDE
Vladimir Kramnik - 2800 FIDE

This 8 player event will be double round robin so each player will have White and Black vs each opponent in the field.

Who do you think will win?

My dark horse is Mamedyarov but something is telling me that Aronian will crash through and win the event.

New In Chess has a Free special coverage of the Candidates event which you can sign up for here:

https://www.newinchess.com/free-candidates-special

You can download the New In Chess app for free and then click on a game in the candidates special to be able to click through the game (in the app itself) with annotations/analysis.

The last two candidate tournaments have shown that literally everybody has a chance to win it. They are just so close in strength that it all comes down to having the best form during those two weeks. I would guess that every player has a 5-20% chance of winning it.
I would like to see Aronian or Caruana play Carlsen, but pretty much everyone would be better than Karjakin. Really don't want another snooze-fest WC in November.

Best thing is though, Svidler and Gustafsson doing commentary together. Gonna be lots of fun watching the coverage.

Where can I catch this coverage? Through the newinchess app?

Cannot wait for Svidler's commentary (Jan's too, but less)! Dis is gonna be soooo gooood

As to the recent form of the candidates:

1. Karjakin - solid in Tata Steel, very sub par in London, bad in Tal's Memorial (Rapid), destroyed Tal Memorial (Blitz).

2. Aronian - was solid, but not spectacular, in Gibraltar and bad in London;

3. Ding Liren - apart from the Chinese league (mixed but overall dissapointing results), last important tournament was back in November, where he was decent in Fide Gran Prix in Palma de Mallorca;

4. Mamedyarov - recently two draws vs weaker players in Bundesliga, but very good in Tata Steel.

5. Grischuk - haven't played any elite tournaments in a while and in lower-tier competitions struggled mightily (including recent blitz/rapid at Tal Memorial).

6. Caruana - good/very good in London Classic yet absolutely terrible in Tata Steel right after. If he plays like he did in Tata he is clear "favorite" for the last place, if he plays like in London he has a shot to even win the thing. Biggest enigma IMO.

7. Wesley So - very solid, if not spectacular, in both Tata and London. I believe he is going to be in the upper half of the table, but is not going to win enough to take down the whole thing.

8. Kramnik - very good in Tata and my dark horse for this event. Incredibly, Vlad has become one of the most entertaining players in the elite these days, always a pleasure to watch.

So, overall, I honestly have no idea. Like Faustfan said, they are very evenly matched and no one stands out as a clear favorite.

If I had to make a prediction, I would go with:

1. Kramnik
2. Aronian
3. Mamedyarov
4. So
5. Caruana
6. Ding Liren
7. Karjakin
8. Grischuk

However, I would not be surprised at all if my entire prognosis is incorrect

Is Kramnik any relation?

Its on chess24, probably open for non-paying members I guess

I predict that So's strategy is basically Karjakin's from last year (and what he does for every tournament). To try and play solidly, hopefully get a gift (Naka blunder & tiebreak scenario) or two and then all of a sudden be playing for first at the end.

It seems the other players (except Karjakin, since he will surely repeat the same strategy) may actually try to generate some wins. Which...will be interesting. If they decide not to, it will be weird. Remember, there is no Topalov this year and I can't imagine anyone will take his place by showing up with basically zero prep and seemingly playing random stuff. So if everyone basically decides to play solidly it could be 10 rounds of draws followed by players taking random chances at the end.

I don't see Kramnik doing this, however. He seems somewhat addicted to trying to actually win and his plan may be to try and get points early while he's fresher. Also, Grischuk is going to drop a couple of games due to time trouble, so he needs to win a couple of games just to keep up with himself.

MVL needs to be in this.

Other than that, looking forward to Svidler, as well. Best commentator in chess, ainec.

Fabi is taking this down

Kramnik winning this event wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

All that experience has to count for something!

Kramnik winning then beating Magnus would make his career path pretty GOATish haha

I am very excited for the Candidates. I think this is going to be great. Such a good field and although MVL needed some love no one is counting Kramnik out of this and he is high in the world rankings so he's not an insane wild card pick. Can't wait for this to start!

Mamedyarov is the #1 seed by rating, and Kramnik #2. I love how y'all define "dark horse"

I mean obviously with players this strong everyone's a legit contender, and more goes into predicting the winner than just rating, but still, a guy rated 2800+ is never a "dark horse" imo.

Yeah, exactly. My dark horse is Aronian.

Is Mamedyarov the odds on favorite to win the Candidates though?

#DarkHorse

Definitely not odds-on. That would mean he's more than 50% to win the tournament.

From what I've seen the betting favorite is Aronian (but it's close) - which seems about right. Mamedyarov has turned a corner, but, still hard to buy him winning in a field like this.

Exactly. Which is why he's my ****ing DarkHorse .

Looking at the ratings of the field another way, I think it's cool that the *lowest* rated player in the tournament won it last time around. Really there is no dark horse here. None of the eight players are someone who, if they won, would shock me by doing so. In 2+2 parlance, everyone's solid.

This should make it an awesome tournament to follow!

That's pretty much why I made a thread for this event.

NO MONEY IN THE CANDIDATES

EVERYONE'S SALAD 🥗

#ChessMeme

Anish Giri so far is the champ of the candidates. His twitter game may be more entertaining than the actual games. I hope not though.

came here to post this haha

lol

Straight fire. Lol Hikaru hopping on the bash Anish train too.

Hikaru sure gonna have plenty of time to tweet these next few weeks!

🤣🤣🤣

Magnus can get pretty salty.