The FIDE Candidate Matches start 26 May, in Elista, Kalmykia. The first round matches have the following pairings.

1) Aronian, Levon (ARM) - Carlsen, Magnus (NOR)
2) Leko, Peter (HUN) - Gurevich, Mikhail (TUR)
3) Ponomariov, Ruslan (UKR) - Rublevsky, Sergei (RUS)
4) Gelfand, Boris (ISR) - Kasimdzhanov, Rustam (UZB)
5) Bacrot, Etienne (FRA) - Kamsky, Gata (USA)
6) Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) - Malakhov, Vladimir (RUS)
7) Polgar, Judith (HUN) - Bareev, Evgeny (RUS)
8) Shirov, Alexei (ESP) - Adams, Michael (ENG)

In the second round, the winner of match no.1 plays the winner of no.8; the winner of no.2 plays no.7; no.3 plays no.6; and no.4 plays no.5. The winners of those matches will advance to the World Championship event in September, where they will join World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (RUS), plus Viswanathan Anand (IND), Peter Svidler (RUS), and Alexander Morozevich (RUS), who qualified from the 2005 World Championship.

The two rounds of matches will be played according to the following schedule. Unmarked days are free.

No official site has been announced. For more information, see the FIDE page Candidates Matches for the 2007 World Championship Tournament • For background, see our ChessChrono 2007 Candidate Matches.

Later: Official site: GlobalChess.eu. • Other links: Candidate Matches 2007 (our forum).