World Chess Championship 2016

The World Chess Championship 2016 is a planned match between reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and a challenger, to determine the 2016 World Chess Champion. It is planned to be held under the auspices of FIDE, the World Chess Federation.

During the closing ceremony of the 2014 Championship, the FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said the match would be held in the United States. He reiterated this in October at the Chess World Cup 2015, saying that the date and place were already final, it would occur in October 2016 in the USA, with five or six sponsors involved, and many cities (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago) offering themselves as a venue. Other information has placed the event in November 2016, with Chicago replaced by San Francisco as a possible venue (see next paragraph).

FIDE's commercial partner Agon, reported to the September 2015 FIDE Executive Board as a special annex. Here they demonstrate four major sponsors for 2016, Goldman Sachs Investment Banking, Audi, E.ON, and Isklar Water. Regarding the World Championship specifically, the report says "Agon has secured a prize fund (EUR2,000,000) and is working on developing sponsorship contracts. We’ll inform the Board and, if approved, announce the city and venue in November of 2015, exactly a year before the championship. We are looking at New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. We are also working with ESPN and Sky Sports to make sure the Championship is on TV."

However, all plans must be considered to be on hold, as on November 25, 2015 Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was named a Specially Designated National by the United States Department of the Treasury (Office of Foreign Assets Control), which in particular prohibits US persons from transacting with him. Ilyumzhinov commented that the action was a provocation, as he was to be in New York on the ensuing Sunday to sign the contract for the World Championship. However, according to TASS, Ilyumzhinov is still intending to be in the USA to discuss "problems related to [the] world championship match in 2017", with visits to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York.

Candidates Tournament

The Candidates Tournament is traditionally considered to be the most important part of the FIDE World Chess Championship cycle. It will be held 10–30 March 2016 in Moscow, Russia, with FIDE, the Russian Chess Federation, and FIDE's commercial partner Agon as the official organizers. The official partner (sponsor) will be the Tashir Group, owned by Armenian-born real estate magnate Samvel Karapetyan. The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan has been invited to open the Tournament.

The tournament will be contested as a double round-robin over 14 games, with four rest days after Games 3, 6, 9, and 12. The winner of this 8-player Candidates Tournament will be the challenger for the 2016 World Chess Championship against Magnus Carlsen.

Qualifiers

There are five different qualification paths to the Candidates Tournament. In order of priority, these are: Runner-up of the World Chess Championship 2014 match, the top two finishers in the Chess World Cup 2015, the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15, next two highest rated players (average FIDE rating on the 12 monthly lists from January to December 2015, with at least 30 games played) who played in Chess World Cup 2015 or FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15, and organizing committee's wild card.

Qualification path	Player	Age	Rating
Runner-up of the World Chess Championship 2014 match	Viswanathan Anand	46	2796
The top two finishers in the Chess World Cup 2015	Sergey Karjakin	26	2766
	Peter Svidler	39	2751
The top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15	Fabiano Caruana	23	2787
	Hikaru Nakamura	28	2793
The top two players with highest average 2015 rating who played in World Cup or Grand Prix (Results from accumulating monthly lists currently unconfirmed by FIDE)	Veselin Topalov	41	2803
	Anish Giri	21	2784
Organizing committee's wild card (FIDE rating in July 2015 at least 2725)	Levon Aronian	33	2788

Note: the ratings given above are not used for anything (such as seeding), but are completely informational in nature. The age column is in years based upon 15 March 2016. FIDE uses a country-diversion system, so that Svidler and Karjakin, similarly Nakamura and Caruana, will be paired together in rounds 1 and 8, to avoid conflicts in late rounds.

Replacements

Should any player withdraw from the tournament, the first replacement would be Dmitry Jakovenko, who finished third in the FIDE Grand Prix. After this, players will be selected in order of average rating in 2015 as in the table below. This is not just a theoretical possibility, as Veselin Topalov has been outspoken in his complaints, and upon hearing of Moscow as the location, told Chess.com that he was "waiting for the contract before taking my final decision if to play or not". His manager Silvio Danailov gave similar comments to a Russian/Bulgarian news source.

Rank	Player	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Live	Total
1	Veselin Topalov	2800	2800	2798	2798	2798	2798	2816	2816	2816	2813	2803	2803	33659
2	Anish Giri	2784	2797	2790	2790	2776	2773	2791	2793	2793	2798	2778	2784	33447
3	Vladimir Kramnik	2783	2783	2783	2783	2777	2783	2783	2777	2777	2777	2796	2796	33398
4	Alexander Grischuk	2810	2810	2794	2794	2780	2781	2771	2771	2771	2774	2750	2747	33353
5	Wesley So	2762	2788	2788	2788	2778	2778	2780	2779	2773	2760	2767	2775	33316