Svidler is FIDE Candidates Wildcard
The Russian organizers have chosen GM Peter Svidler as the lone wildcard to the 2014 FIDE Candidates Tournament, to be held in Khanty-Mansisyk in Siberia from March 12-30. The official statement on FIDE's web site is here.
They were free to choose any player rated above 2725; Svidler is currently 2752 on the live ratings list, ranking him 13th in the world.
Svidler finished third at the 2013 Candidates Tournament, the event that GM Magnus Carlsen won to challenge for the world title. Just three weeks ago, Svidler won his seventh Russian Championship.
Svidler (left) winning the 2013 Russian Championship. Photo courtesy Eteri Kublashvili, Russian Chess Federation
Svidler joins the other seven players who are already qualified - GMs Vladimir Kramnik, Dmitry Andreikin, Veselin Topalov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, and the loser of this month's World Championship Match.
Organizers passed over other possible nominations, including GMs Hikaru Nakamura (world number four), Alexander Grischuk (number five), Fabiano Caruana (number six), prior World Champion Runner-Up Boris Gelfand (number seven), and Leinier Dominguez (number 12).
A recent Chess.com poll asked members which of these players they would like to see get the wildcard. With more than 3000 respondents, Nakamura had the highest share with around 40 percent of the voters choosing him.
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Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
