There are only 2 spots left in the 2022 Candidates Tournament, and those 2 places will be granted to the players who perform best in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022. The Grand Prix consists of 3 tournaments played between February and April. We already know the winner of the first leg, Hikaru Nakamura, who beat Levon Aronian in tiebreaks. Players can only participate in 2 of the 3 tournaments, so they need to make every point count. The 1st leg of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 was held in Berlin, the 2nd leg will take place in Belgrade, and the 3rd and last leg will be back in Berlin.
The line-up for Leg 2 of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix in Belgrade
What is the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix? This series will decide who are the last 2 players to participate in the 2022 Candidates Tournament.
Who is playing in the FIDE 2022 Grand Prix? 26 players are taking part in this event (24 originally, with Radek Wojtaszek replacing Ding Liren and Andrey Esipenko replacing Dmitry Andreikin), including Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Sam Shankland.
Who won the first FIDE Grand Prix Tournament in Berlin? Hikaru Nakamura was the winner of the 1st leg of the tournament.
How do you qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament? There are several ways: as the runner-up in the last World Championship and for finishing in 1st or 2nd place in the FIDE World Cup, FIDE Grand Swiss and in the FIDE Grand Prix series. Teimour Radjabov was also given a place after he pulled out of the 2020-2021 Candidates Tournament over pandemic fears.
The Spanish capital city Madrid awaits the 8 chess players who will fight each other for the chance to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship title.
The Candidates Tournament will be played between June 16 and July 7 of 2022 and 6 players are already in:
The FIDE Grand Prix 2022 will serve as the last competition in which players will be able to qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament.
In total, 26 of the top chess grandmasters in the world will take part in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022.
The highest-ranked players in the whole FIDE Grand Prix 2022 series are Levon Aronian, Anish Giri and Wesley So, all with a current rating of 2772 (as of February 2022).
The FIDE Grand Prix 2022 is divided into 3 main tournaments:
It’s important to note that the 26 chess grandmasters that will play in the event only participate in 2 of the 3 legs.
Only the 2 top performers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 will get their ticket to the 2022 Candidates Tournament in Madrid, Spain.
This means that even if a player doesn’t win either of the 2 legs he’ll play in, he still has the chance to qualify to the Candidates Tournament based on the number of points he managed to win over the whole series.
Each one of the 3 legs is divided into 4 pools with 4 players each. In the pool stage, the format is a double-round robin. Only 1 player per pool qualifies for the semi-finals, in which the format is 2 classical games plus tiebreaks, if needed. The same format then applies to the finals.
Points are awarded depending on the final ranking of each player:
This is the ranking after leg 1:
Therefore the maximum number of points a player can obtain during the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 is 26 points, which would automatically grant him a spot in the Candidates Tournament, and the highest amount of prize money available of €48,000 (about $54,367 as of late February 2022).
Since Viswanathan Anand, Wang Hao and Veselin Topalov are inactive at the moment, they did not qualify. Also, Wei Yi withdrew, so Indian Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna took his place.
Unfortunately, Ding Liren was unable to participate in either of the first 2 legs after having issues with his visa. He is first in line in case of withdrawals.
The FIDE website stated:
In the eventuality [of] any of the participants expected for the third and last leg of the FIDE Grand Prix being forced to withdraw for whatever reason more than 15 days prior to the start of the tournament, GM Ding would be considered, by rating, the first reserve. FIDE is also willing to count on Ding in case any unforeseen circumstances force us to designate a wildcard. However, we realize that the chances of him getting to actually play in the Grand Prix this year are very slim under the current circumstances.
Ding Liren was replaced by Radek Wojtaszek.
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As we said at the beginning of this article, Hikaru Nakamura had an outstanding performance in Berlin and managed to win the leg in tiebreaks against Levon Aronian.
Even though Nakamura did not lose a single game in the whole tournament, his opponents did not make things easy for him.
He drew one of the two games vs Alexander Grischuk and both games versus Etienne Bacrot.
Hikaru Nakamura almost lost his game against Andrey Esipenko in the final round of the pool, after having beaten the Russian in their first encounter.
Nakamura somehow managed to survive a lost position as Black and qualified for the semi-finals.
His next opponent, Richard Rapport, put up a good fight but it was not enough to beat the chess streaming king.
In the finals, Nakamura played against Levon Aronian and the match went to tiebreaks.
In the rapids, Hikaru displayed some solid chess and won both games to claim the first leg of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022.
The action in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 paused for a couple of weeks but resumes on March 1st, when the 2nd leg of the tournament kicks off with the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix in the capital city of Serbia.
This is the line-up for leg 2 of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix:
The players that will not take part of this 2nd leg are: Levon Aronian, Wesley So, Leinier Dominguez, Hikaru Nakamura, Dmitry Andreikin, Daniil Dubov, Grigoriy Oparin, and Vincent Keymer. All of them will participate in the 3rd and last leg of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix.
The series will come to a conclusion in the same place it started: Berlin, from March 22nd to April 4th.
The 8 players that missed the 1st leg, plus the 8 players that missed the 2nd leg, will have their last shot at trying to qualify for the Candidates Tournament.
Among these players is the winner of the first leg, Hikaru Nakamura, and the runner-up, Levon Aronian, who will need another good performance in order to have a chance of being present at the Candidates Tournament in Madrid.
Here’s the full line-up for Leg 3 in Berlin:
Grandmasters Jan Gustafsson and Peter Svidler will commentate live on the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix from 09:00 ET | 15:00 CET | 19:30 IST on Tuesday March 1st.
See also:
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