Two Big Events for 2012

The 2012 Anand - Gelfand match is fast approaching, so I updated that page to include the latest announcements from FIDE plus a link to the official site. After that match, the 2012 Candidates Event is the next big event in the lineup, and I added that page to my index for the World Chess Championship. The Candidates event deserves a blog post on it own, but details on its organization are still too unclear to do anything except speculate.

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Later: No sooner had the ink dried (so to speak) on this post, than it was obsolete, as was the title: FIDE Announces Dates for World Chess Championship Cycles [28 March 2012].

In the revised calendar, the next World Chess Candidates Tournament has been moved to March 13 – March 31, 2013. The tournament will take place in London.

Comparing the new calendar with the old, which I documented in Overview of Four Cycles, reveals other significant changes. The 2014 Candidates event has been moved forward from November to March and the World Championship match for the same cycle, C26 using my numbering, has been moved from November 2015 to November 2014.

Even more importantly, FIDE has finally settled on a consistent two year cycle. The World Cup will be held around third quarter (Q3) of the start year of a new cycle, the Candidates event around Q1 of the following year, and the title match around Q3 of the same year. This means that the overlapping cycles we have seen over the past few years will disappear for C27. Continental championships and zonal tournaments can be scheduled accordingly.

As for the Grand Prix tournaments in major cities of the world, it remains to be seen if FIDE can execute its plan. Nothing we have seen in the past inspires confidence.