Moscow Candidates - Kickoff

The Candidates Tournament for the current World Championship cycle starts in a few days, so I'll retrace my steps from the previous cycle, Khanty-Mansiysk Candidates - Kickoff (March 2014), and provide a few relevant links.

• Official site: moscow2016.fide.com
• Current Local Time in Moscow, Russia
• My page: 2016 Candidates Tournament

And once again, here's a table with links to Chessgames.com showing how the eight participants have scored in play against each other and against World Champion Carlsen:-

	Ana	Aro	Car	Gir	Kar	Nak	Svi	Top	:	Car
Anand	xx	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	:	*
Aronian		xx	*	*	*	*	*	*	:	*
Caruana			xx	*	*	*	*	*	:	*
Giri				xx	*	*	*	*	:	*
Karjakin					xx	*	*	*	:	*
Nakamura						xx	*	*	:	*
Svidler							xx	*	:	*
Topalov								xx	:	*
Carlsen									:	xx

Three players from the 2014 Candidates -- Andreikin, Kramnik, and Mamedyarov -- have disappeared and have been replaced by Caruana, Giri, and Nakamura. It's curious that all three departed players finished with the same 50% score in 2014. It's also curious that the three newcomers are the 1-2-3 favorites for winning the 2016 event: Computer simulates and predicts Candidates winner (chessbase.com).

Official posters

This event could turn out to be one of the most closely contested candidate tournaments of the modern chess era.