The 2012 Candidates' tournament will determine who will be the challenger for the 2013 World Chess Championship match. The winner of the Candidates' tournament will play either Viswanathan Anand or Boris Gelfand, depending on who wins the 2012 World Chess Championship match.
For the 2013 World Chess Championship cycle, eight players will be qualified for the Candidates' tournament. The tournament will be played in London, England, from October 23 to November 13.
There are four different ways in which players might qualify to participate in the Candidates' tournament. As of this writing, seven of the eight players have been determined. The players were selected in the following manner:
The loser of the 2012 World Championship match is guaranteed a spot in the next Candidates' tournament. This player will be either Viswanathan Anand or Boris Gelfand.
The top three finishers in the Chess World Cup 2011 earned spots into the Candidates' tournament. These players were Peter Svidler, Alexander Grischuk and Vassily Ivanchuk.
Based on the average ratings from the July 2011 and January 2012 FIDE rating lists, the top three players who were not selected by one of the two methods above were also guaranteed spots in the tournament. The players selected in this manner were Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik.
Finally, the organizing committee for the tournament is allowed to choose one player to participate in the event. However, to ensure that the player is worthy of participation, they must be rated at least 2700 on the January 2012 FIDE rating list. In February 2012, tournament organizers selected Teimour Radjabov to fill this role.
Should any players drop out, replacements will be chosen based on the average of their rankings from the July 2011 and January 2012 rating lists. The first player who would serve as an alternate would be Sergey Karjakin.
Tournament Format
The tournament will be contested between the eight players chosen in a double-round robin format. This will result in a tournament of 14 rounds; one game will be played each day, with four rest days built into the schedule.
The tournament will be won by the player with the best score at the end of the event, using traditional scoring rules (one point for a win, half-point for a draw, no points for a loss).
In the case that two or more players remain tied for first at the end of the tournament, there will be three tiebreak criteria applied. First, the results of the players involved in the tie will be considered. Should one player have won that "mini-match," then they will be declared the winner of the Candidates' tournament. If more than two players are tied, all results within that group will be considered in this tiebreaker.
The second tiebreaker will be the number of wins in the tournament. The player who won the most games will be declared the winner. Finally, the Sonneborn-Berger tiebreak system will be used if there is still a tie.
Should a tie remain after all three criteria are considered (likely if the top two players drew their match and had identical results against the other six players), a series of two rapid games will be played in order to break the tie. Should that not produce a winner, the players will play two blitz games in an effort to resolve the tie. Up to three pairs of these blitz games will be attempted before resorting to a sudden death (or "Armageddon") game, in which White receives a time advantage but must win the game to win the match (in the case of a draw, Black wins the tournament).
