Ten Indians will compete at the chess World Cup, to be held in Khanty-Mansiysk (Russia) from September 4.
It could have been 11, but Viswanathan Anand has pulled out, preferring to play instead in the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament, which too is a qualifying event for the Candidates.
The winner of the Candidates tourney will earn the right to challenge champion Magnus Carlsen for the World title next year. From the World Cup, the two finalists will qualify for the Candidates. There will be 128 players in the fray for the World Cup, a knock-out event, unlike most tournaments in chess.
P. Harikrishna, Vidit Gujrathi, B. Adhiban, S.S. Ganguly, S.P. Sethuraman, Karthikeyan Murali, Aravindh Chithambaram, Nihal Sarin, S.L. Narayanan and Abhijeet Gupta are the Indian qualifiers and Harikrishna is the highest seed, at No. 17. The tournament will be played over seven rounds. The first six will have two classical games, while the final will have four. Tie will be broken by rapid, blitz or sudden-death games.
