On May 26th the FIDE Candidates matches will begin in Elista, Russia.  It's a KO format with 16 players being whittled down to a final four who will qualify to play in the World Chess Championship in Mexico City where they join Anand, Kramnik, Svidler and Morozevich who are seeded through automatically.

 

The Candidates seeding is as follows: 

 

01. Levon Aronian (ARM)
02. Peter Leko (HUN)
03. Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR)
04. Boris Gelfand (ISR)
05. Etienne Bacrot (FRA)
06. Alexander Grischuk (RUS)
07. Judith Polgar (HUN)
08. Alexei Shirov (ESP)
09. Michael Adams (ENG)
10. Evgeny Bareev (RUS)
11. Vladimir Malakhov (RUS)
12. Gata Kamsky (USA)
13. Rustam Kasimjanov (UZB)
14. Sergei Rublevsky (RUS)
15. Mikhail Gurevich (TUR)
16. Magnus Carlsen (NOR)

 

Who will you be cheering for?

I believe the final 8 will be Aronian, Leko, Rublevsky, Gelfand, Kamsky, Grischuk, Bareev, and Adams.

I believe the final 4 will be Aronian, Leko, Grischuk, and Kamsky.

 

I'd love to see Judit take it!

I'll be following Kamsky.

After two games have been played in round 1, the leaders are Aronian, Leko, Kamsky, Grischuk, and Bareev in their matches.

After 3 rounds, Carlsen and Aronian have won one each and are tied.  Leko has won 2 games and 1 draw over Gurevich.  Gelfand and Kasimjanov are tied with 3 draws.  Kamsky has won 2 and 1 draw over Bacrot.  Grischuk has a win and 2 draws with Malakhov.  Bareev has one win and 2 draws over Polgar.  Adams and Shirov have 3 draws.  Rublevsky has 1 win and 2 draws against Ponomarov (a win in 92 moves with Q+ 2P vs Q).

Does anyone know how the prizemoney is divided up for this 'tournament'?

The winner of each match gets $20,000 and moves on to the next match.

The loser gets $20,000 and goes home.

Here is a link to all the rules.

http://www.fide.com/news/download/Undertaking_CandMatches07.pdf

How were the 16 players chosen? Was it the 16 highest ranked players in the world after Kramnik, Anand and the others who have already quailified?

They were not the 16 highest ranked players.  If they were to have been chosen by rank, here are the top 19 players (all 2700 or better): Anand, Topalov, Kramnik (world champion), Morozevich, Aronian, Mamedyarov, Radjabov, Leko, Svidler, Adams, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Polgar, Navara, Ponomariov, Grischuk, Bacrot, Jakovenko, Kamsky.  Shirov is 2699 (#20 in the world).  Carlsen is 2693 (# 22 in the world).  Gurevich is 2635 (#81 in the world).  Rublevsky is 2680 (#28 in the world).  Kasimdzhanov is 2677 (#32 in the world). Malakhov is 2679 (#29 in the world).  Bareev is 2643 (#67 in the world).

Kasimjanov (Kasimdzanov) qualified because he was the 2004 world champion.

FIDE took the average ratings of the July 2004 and January 2005 rating list and qualified the top 5 players: Leko, Adams, Polgar, Shirov, and Bacrot.  Excluded were Topalov, Anand, Svidler, and Morozevich.

10 players qualified from the World Cup 2005.  This included Aronian, Ponomariov, Grischuk, Bareev, Gelfand, Rublevsky, Gurevich, Kamsky, Carlsen, and Malakhov.

Well, I predicted everyone except Shirov.  I thought Michael Adams would win, but he lost in tiebreaks.  My final four is still the same: Kamsky, Aronian, Leko, and Girschuk.

Well done Bill.  Looking at the next round matches, I think you'll probably be right.

Will the actual world championships be one on one matches?

 

The World Championship will be a double round robin tournament in September (i.e. everyone plays everyone else twice).  I would prefer matches personally.

"I believe the final 4 will be Aronian, Leko, Grischuk, and Kamsky."

 Well, I got three out of four.  Kamsky lost to Gelfand.  So the final four were Aronian, Leko, Grischuk, and Gelfand.

For Mexico City, I predict the order to be Kramnik, Anand, Svidler, Morovitch, Aronin, Leko, Gelfand, and Grischuk.