Candidates Matches 2007 Elista

Aside from the Chicago Open, this weekend's big event is the 16-player Candidate Matches to be held at Elista, hometown of FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The first round will be on Sunday, May 27th. Out of this group of sixteen, four will move on to Mexico for the World Chess Championships. That's going to be held from September 11 to October 1, 2007. In Mexico, these four players will be joined by WC Kramnik, V. Anand, A. Morozevich, and P. Svidler who qualified from the previous World Chess Championship.

The sixteen players are : Levon Aronian (ARM), Peter Leko (HUN), Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR), Boris Gelfand (ISR), Etienne Bacrot (FRA), Alexander Grischuk (RUS), Judith Polgar (HUN), Alexei Shirov (ESP), Michael Adams (ENG), Evgeny Bareev (RUS), Vladimir Malakhov (RUS), Gata Kamsky (USA), Rustam Kasimjanov (UZB), Sergei Rublevsky (RUS), Mikhail Gurevich (TUR), Magnus Carlsen (NOR). I will be perusing the games, and presenting the big moments here on this blog. Aren't you excited?