Candidates Qualification

The following table shows the average rating required for a player other than Topalov and Giri to qualify for the Candidates tournament, assuming Giri maintains his current rating until the end of the year. This is of course by no means guaranteed, as he has 2 GCT events coming up, and generally plays a lot, but for simplicity it is the measure used.

The next next positioned player (Grischuk) would need to boost his rating to 2785, and maintain this level. Kranmik would need to get up to 2798, while everyone else would need to get back above 2800. This is probably only realistic for Wesley So. It should be noted this rating is the average they need to have for the remaining 5 ratings, so if they are not at that level by the end of this month, the required rating climbs higher still.

Apart from those 3, no player has a realistic chance of qualifying by ratings. This is particularly surprising in the case of Aronian, who began 2015 rated well above Giri.

Expect to see a lot of players on this list targeting the World Cup as their avenue for the Big 8 Event :)