Candidates Tournament

The Candidates Tournament is the final major qualifying test before the World Chess Championship. Its winner becomes the official challenger to the reigning champion. Winning the Candidates therefore does not itself award the world crown; it awards the right to play for it. It is organized by FIDE, the International Chess Federation.

Recent cycles have used eight players and a double round-robin. This means every player faces every opponent twice, once with White and once with Black. With eight participants, each player plays 14 games. If first place is tied, the regulations for that cycle specify how the winner is decided.

The routes into the tournament change over time. Different cycles have awarded places through the FIDE World Cup, the Grand Swiss, season-long performance circuits, and rating criteria. A rating is a numerical estimate of competitive strength based on results. FIDE changes these paths between cycles, so any exact list of qualification spots should always be read with its corresponding year.

The first Candidates Tournament was held in Budapest in 1950. Before that system, challenging for the world title depended much more heavily on negotiating directly with the champion and finding financial backing for a match. The Candidates made challenger selection a more structured competitive process.

Players such as Fischer and Carlsen earned their paths to the world title through Candidates competition, although the exact format differed between generations.