The Race for the 2024 Candidates Events

The new year saw a flurry of activity related to the next stage of the current cycle (all links are fide.com):-

• 2023-12-18: FIDE statement on rating specific tournaments • 'Concerns have arisen regarding the [Chartres, France] tournament's potential purpose -- whether it was orchestrated to aid Mr Firouzja in boosting his rating for potential qualification into the Candidates Tournament 2024'
• 2024-01-01: FIDE January 2024 rating list: Firouzja and Koneru qualify for Candidates
• 2024-01-13: Magnus Carlsen withdraws from Candidates 2024, the spot goes to Nijat Abasov
• 2024-01-15: FIDE publishes regulations for 2024 Candidates Tournaments

That last link includes full lists of the players who qualified for the two Candidates events and how they qualified:-

Candidates (*):-
Ian Nepomniachtchi, 2023 Match Runner-up
R Praggnanandhaa, 2023 World Cup 2nd
Fabiano Caruana, 2023 World Cup 3rd
Nijat Abasov, 2023 World Cup 4th
Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, 2023 Grand Swiss winner
Hikaru Nakamura, 2023 Grand Swiss 2nd
Alireza Firouzja, Best by Rating
Gukesh D, 2023 FIDE Circuit Winner

(*) Magnus Carlsen, who qualified for the Candidates by winning the 2023 World Cup, earlier informed FIDE that he will not be taking part in the event. As per FIDE Candidates qualification paths, Nijat Abasov, who finished 4th in the World Cup, took his place.

Women's Candidates:-
Lei Tingjie, 2023 Match Runner-up
Kateryna Lagno, 2022-23 WGP 1st
Aleksandra Goryachkina, 2022-23 WGP 2nd
Nurgyul Salimova, 2023 World Cup 2nd
Anna Muzychuk, 2023 World Cup 3rd
Vaishali Rameshbabu, 2023 Grand Swiss 1st
Tan Zhongyi, 2023 Grand Swiss 2nd
Humpy Koneru, Best by Rating (World Cup spot replacement)

Also worth noting is an official page on a new feature of the current cycle:-

• FIDE Circuit 2023 (wcc.fide.com) • 'FIDE Circuit is the new path to qualify for the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024.'

Since the FIDE announcements are 'Just the facts, Ma'am', reports from the chess news sites add substantial background and color.

• 2023-10-25: Race for the Candidates: Four places still up for grabs (chessbase.com; Carlos Alberto Colodro)
• 2023-11-30: Kasparov: Can’t Follow the FIDE Mathematics (saintlouischessclub.org; video)
• 2023-11-30: Dominguez: After FIDE’s Changes, I Will Fight for the Candidates (saintlouischessclub.org; video)
• 2023-12-05: US Chess: Candidate Tournament Qualification Letter to FIDE (chessbase.com)
• 2023-12-06: FIDE Clarification On Candidates Race Draws Reactions (chess.com; TarjeiJS)
• 2023-12-19: FIDE statement on rating specific tournaments (chessbase.com)
• 2023-12-25: Caruana wins FIDE Circuit, second spot to be decided in Samarkand (chessbase.com)
• 2023-12-27: Firouzja playing in Rouen, FIDE changes tournament registration procedure (chessbase.com; Carlos Alberto Colodro)
• 2023-12-29: Firouzja Overtakes Wesley So To Grab Candidates Rating Spot (chess.com; Colin_McGourty)
• 2024-01-01: Gukesh, Firouzja and Humpy make it to the Candidates (chessbase.com; Carlos Alberto Colodro)
• 2024-01-03: The participants of the Candidates (chessbase.com; André Schulz)
• 2024-01-04: It's official: Carlsen will not play in the Candidates (chessbase.com; André Schulz) • 'Carlsen has now announced on his X account'
• 2024-01-15: Carlsen Confirms He Will Formally Decline Candidates Invitation (chess.com; TarjeiJS) • 'GM Magnus Carlsen was included in FIDE's full lineup for the Candidates tournament this week, but in an exclusive interview with Chess.com the former world champion says that he is formally turning down the invitation to play in Toronto.'

For both Candidates tournaments, the FIDE calendar says, 'Toronto, Canada • 03 Apr 2024 • 25 Apr 2024'.

World Championships from 50 and 25 Years Ago

Last week on my main blog, I encountered a few World Championship topics that needed more time than I had. In the post January 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (January 2024), I commented,

That mention of Fischer and Marcos deserves further exploration, but I'm worried it might lead me down a rabbit hole from which I won't return in time to finish this current post. Maybe later...

That comment referred to January 1974, while a second comment in the same post referred to January 1999:-

The cover introduction continued with news about two World Championships. [...] Once again, that news 'deserves further exploration'.

The post quoted 'Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)':-

The great Philippines International Tournament, the most important chess event ever held in Asia and the Pacific area, ended November 6. The significance of the event was highlighted by the ceremonial presence of World Champion Bobby Fischer and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos.

Re Fischer/Marcos, good thing I didn't go any further for that post. I've already dealt with the meeting in posts on both of my blogs:-

• 2012-09-19: The Philippine Connection • (WCCB) '1973 Manila: Fischer visits tournament; meets Marcos, Campomanes'
• 2014-07-03: Treated Like a World Champion • (CFAA) 'I [found] a 1973 Fischer photo that doesn't yet seem to have been made available on the web'

Here is that Fischer photo again.

Re the 1999 'news about two World Championships', the first concerned the FIDE Knockout Matches; Las Vegas, VII-VIII, 1999 (m-w.com). The post quoted 'Chess Life (25 Years Ago)':-

De Firmian, Benjamin, and the other semi-finalists, Dmitry Gurevich and Tal Shaked, qualified to participate in the FIDE World Championship, along with Boris Gulko and Sergey Kudrin, both of whom qualified by previous performance or rating; and Alexander Ivanov, who qualified by winning the 1998 Pan American Championship, which was held in Venezuela in October. Gata Kamsky has also been invited (by rating).

My page Zonal Qualifiers 1998-1999 (C18) (m-w.com) has info on all eight players:-

Zone 2.1
55. J. BENJAMIN (USA)
56. N. de FIRMAN (USA)
57. D. GUREVICH (USA)
58. T. SHAKED (USA)
59. B. GULKO (USA)

Nominee by the Administrator
14. S. KUDRIN (USA)

Nominees by Continental President
16. America: A. IVANOV (USA)

Qualified by ELO (average January-July 1998)
85. G. KAMSKY (USA) (2720)

The qualification of GMs Gulko, Ivanov, and Kudrin, is not consistent between the two sources. GM Ivanov's qualification is confirmed in TWIC 209, but the details about the other two GMs need further investigation.

Re the 1999 news about the second World Championship, the January 1999 CL said,

Alisa Galliamova-Ivanchuk forfeited her match with Jun Xie. China was awarded the bid for the match; Alisa wanted to play at least half of the match in Russia, so she didn't show up at all. Jun Xie, the former women's world champion, will now challenge the current champion, Susan Polgar.

The reference is to an unprecedented sequence of matches for the 1995-99 cycle outlined on the World Chess Championship for Women (m-w.com). The Candidates final match is listed there as 'Xie Jun - Galliamova (forfeit)'; the subsequent World Championship match is listed first as 'Xie Jun - Z.Polgar (forfeit)'; and then as 'Xie Jun - Galliamova'. I've already posted twice about these matches:-

• 2017-02-08: 1995-1999 Women's Cycle
• 2017-02-15: The Last Standard Women's Cycle

There is nothing more to add here.

C31 More Zonal Clippings

In the previous post, C31 Zonal Clippings (December 2023), I created the incomplete page Zonals 2022-2023 (C31) with about half of its required clippings. I also noted,

I'll add the other half of the events for the next post on this blog.

I did this and then added a link for the 'C31 Zonals' to two index pages: World Chess Championship and World Chess Championship Zonals. The 'Still to do' at the end of the previous post remains 'Still to do'.

C31 Zonal Clippings

Following last week's post, C31 Zonals Indexed (December 2023), I created a new page titled, World Chess Championship : (C31) Zonals 2022-2023 (m-w.com). The code 'C31' follows my convention for numbering the World Championship cycles.

I then added clippings for about half of the C31 events already listed on the index page, The World Chess Championship Zonals (also m-w.com). I'll add the other half of the events for the next post on this blog.

For the equivalent post in the previous cycle, see C30 Zonal Clippings (January 2022). Documenting that cycle also required two posts.

Still to do: Create a 'C31 Qualifiers' page and add it the appropriate pages.

C31 Zonals Indexed

A few weeks ago, in C31 Zonals (November 2023), I identified zonals++ for the current cycle, and wrote,

The table above is enough to proceed with populating the 22 events on the [zonals] index page.

The address of that index page is The World Chess Championship Zonals. For the equivalent post on the previous cycle, C30 Zonals Indexed (January 2022), I developed some statistics about the zonals for the cycle compared to previous cycles. For this post, I'll have to settle for displaying the section of the index page relevant to C31.

The last six columns are internal controls used to maintain the consistency of the database.

Rogues' Gallery

On my main blog I've been experimenting with AI Comic software. The most recent post in the series, Fischer vs. Carlsen (December 2023), explained,

For this post, I used the tool to see how well it drew World Champions, both past and present. [...] The AI likenesses were generally acceptable, although sometimes barely. I'll look at that in another post, maybe on my World Championship blog.

The following composite image is assembled from 18 times '[Name] plays chess', where '[Name]' is one of the World Champions. Each execution of the command created a 'comic' page with four panels and I picked the best panel to include with the composite.

AI Comic Factory

The likenesses are in chronological order and start with Paul Morphy in the upper left corner. He is followed by Wilhelm Steinitz, after whom they run left to right, top to bottom through Ding Liren in the bottom right corner.

Most of the likenesses resemble their real life champions. The worst match is probably Max Euwe in the upper right corner, which doesn't resemble the Dutchman at all. The first five Soviet Champions, who all appear on the second row before Fischer, are only so-so. Petrosian in the yellow jacket and Spassky to his right are barely recognizable.

The best likenesses are the six most recent champions on the last row. Karpov and Kasparov look much older than when they were in their prime. Kramnik, next to them, deserves a better likeness, but I ran out of time. [NB: Where's Topalov?]

If I find the time, I'll try to do better for Euwe, Petrosian, Spassky, and Kramnik. It might also be interesting to try the same exercise with Women World Champions.

World Championship eBay Auctions

In a recent post on my main blog, Fischer - Spassky Top Items by Price (December 2023), I wrote,

So many years of following Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010) [...] My short list for this post had a dozen items, any one of which could have been featured for the post. By coincidence, the three most expensive items on the list were all related to the 1972 Fischer - Spassky match.

That started me wondering how many earlier eBay posts featured an auction related to the World Championship. There's no easy way to count these using the search available on this public-facing blog, but the private site to create blog posts, Google's Blogger.com, allows for search on multiple tags/labels, e.g. 'eBay and WCC'. I found 49 posts with those tags, including 'Fischer - Spassky Top Items'.

I loaded the control info about the 49 posts into a database and sorted on number of views by descending order. Following are the top five posts ranked by apparent popularity. I say 'apparent', because the number of views depends on factors external to the post. The oldest posts, for example, appeared before blog statistics were introduced on Blogger.com. During the period 2012-2018, posts were affiliated by Chess Club Live (CCL), which greatly boosted their viewing stats. Here's the list of no.1-5:-

• 2013-03-03: 1972 Fischer - Spassky Poster
• 2013-11-24: Carlsen - Anand, Signed Board • 'The Carlsen - Anand World Championship match ended just two days ago, so I [...] looked for Carlsen - Anand items.'
• 2016-02-23: The Real Bobby Fischer? • 'While I was studying the [Darrach] book I was reminded of the many press photos that appeared in the news before, during, and after the 1972 match. I gathered as many of these as I could find and started to sort them. I found close to 100, of which 30 are shown in the following composite photo.'
• 2008-02-05: Halldor Petursson Cartoons
• 2016-07-12: Chess Champion Trading Cards • 'Svijet Sporta card[s] from Yugoslavia in 1980-1981. 'Svijet Sporta' translates to 'Sports World' in English.'

Three of those five posts were related to the 1972 Fischer - Spassky match. Among the posts ranked no.6-10, two were related to the same match. I suppose this all stems from Fischer's mystique, especially among Americans.