Round 2 photos courtesy of Andreas Kontokanis
Round 1
The FIDE World Candidates Tournament 2016 started on 11th March at the DI Telegraph, a historical building in the vicinity of the Moscow Kremlin.
President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan made the honorary first move in the game Anish Giri vs Levon Aronian. Also present for the short ceremony were FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President of the Russian Chess Federation Andrey Filatov, President of the Russian Olympic Committee Alexander Zhukov and ECU President Zurab Azmaiparashvili.
The only decisive game of the day was played between the two former world champions Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov. In the complicated Anti-Berlin Ruy Lopez Anand broke through with the rooks and converted the attacking position into full point.
The first game to finish was the all-American clash between Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. The 2015 World Cup finalists Sergey Karjakin and Peter Svidler followed soon.
But Giri and Aronian fought for nearly six hours before the pieces were traded down to theoretically drawn pawn ending.
Round 2 games on 12th March at 15:00 Moscow time: Svidler-Topalov, Aronian-Anand, Caruana-Giri, Karjakin-Nakamura.
The opening ceremony of the Candidates Tournament, part of the World Chess Championship cycle, took place on March 10 at the Pashkov House in Moscow. Eight top grandmasters will compete from 11th through 29th March for the 420,000 Euro prize fund and the opportunity to challenge the World Champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway), given to the eventual winner. The line-up consists of the World Championship 2014 finalist Vishy Anand (India), 2015 World Cup winner Sergey Karjakin, 2015 World Cup runner-up Peter Svidler (both Russia), 2014-15 FIDE Grand Prix winners Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura (both USA), two players qualified by rating Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) and Anish Giri (Netherlands), and the player nominated by the organizers – Levon Aronian (Armenia). The opening speeches were delivered by the Russian Deputy Prime-Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, President of the Russian Chess Federation Andrey Filatov, and Dmitry Peskov, Chairman of the RCF Board of Trustees and press spokesman for the President of Russia. Tashir Group, Russia’s largest diversified industrial holding company, is a general partner of the tournament and the Russian Chess Federation is also a major supporter. The games will be played at the DI Telegraph, a multifunctional space in the Central Telegraph building which is home to many of Russia's high-tech companies. The World Championship Match between Magnus Carlsen and the challenger qualifying from this tournament will take place in November in New York.
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