World Chess Championship 2016

Defending champion	Challenger
140px	121px
Magnus Carlsen (NOR)	Sergey Karjakin (RUS)
Born 30 November 1990 25 years old	Born 12 January 1990 26 years old
Winner of the 2014 World Chess Championship	Winner of the Candidates Tournament 2016
Rating: 2851 (World No. 1)	Rating: 2779 (World No. 8)

The World Chess Championship 2016 is an upcoming chess match between reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Sergey Karjakin to determine the World Chess Champion. It will be held under the auspices of FIDE, the world chess federation, with the organisation rights belonging to Agon, its commercial partner.

The 12 game match is planned to take place between 11–30 November in New York City, with the two contestants competing for a prize fund of at least 1 million euros (US$1.1m).

Planning

The planning of the 2016 championship was a quite convoluted process even by FIDE's standards, firstly due to various novel features such as the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announcing the country (USA) two years in advance, and also Agon striving for substantial commercial sponsorship and media rights deals to try to meet their contractual obligations, but moreover due to the sudden US Treasury sanctions against Ilyumzhinov, right at the time when the plans were to be finalized.

Timeline

• November 27, 2014: At the closing ceremony for the 2014 championship, FIDE president Ilyumzhinov announces the 2016 match will take place in the USA.
• September 7, 2015: Agon file a report to FIDE, declaring a 2 million euro prize fund to be secured, with the city and venue to be named by November 2015.
• October 4, 2015: At the 2015 Chess World Cup, Ilyumzhinov reiterates the location as the USA, saying that the date and place were already final.
• November 25, 2015: Ilyumzhinov is sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury.
• December 6, 2015: Ilyumzhinov suspends his authority in FIDE, allowing Makropoulos his deputy to act fully.
• December 15, 2015: FIDE and Agon sign media rights deal with Norwegian broadcaster NRK, listing 7-figures (in unknown currency) until 2020.
• January 8, 2016: FIDE announces that Agon has made operational an official broadcasting platform (worldchess.com) for the World Chess Championship cycle events (already present in October 2015). This violates Section 12.4.1 of the FIDE World Championship Match Regulations, which specify the organizer not to develop any other site than the official fwcm2016.fide.com web domain.
• January 11, 2016: Russian Chess Federation president Filatov wonders aloud if the championship preparations in the USA are proceeding. Agon's CEO Ilya Merenzon responds by saying that there is no obstacle, with host city negotiations in the final stage, and Agon together with FIDE will announce the host city by the end of the month.
• March 1, 2016: Agon announce that the city will be New York City, with approval from its mayor. There are still 5 or 6 possible venues, and though some sponsors are confirmed, Merenzon declines to identify them. The prize fund is only mentioned as being at least 1 million euros.
• March 4, 2016: Agon announce that only approved broadcasters will be allowed to retransmit moves from the Candidates and ensuing World Championship. Furthermore, the official organizer of the Candidates is now listed (#4) as World Chess Events Limited.

Planning details

During the closing ceremony of the 2014 Championship, the FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said the match would be held in the United States. In a February 2016 interview with Die Zeit, Magnus Carlsen said that making this announcement so far in advance was a first. Ordinarily in FIDE, the Chess Olympiad is contracted 4 years in advance, but the World Championship can often be thrown together at the last moment, in a matter of a few months.

Ilyumzhinov reiterated the USA plans in October at the Chess World Cup 2015, saying that the date and place were already final, it would occur in October 2016 in the USA, with five or six sponsors involved, and many cities (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago) offering themselves as a venue. Most likely, Ilyumzhinov did not speak exactly in this extemporaneous interview, as other information had placed the event in November 2016, with Chicago replaced by San Francisco as a possible venue.

Agon's report

FIDE's commercial partner Agon reported to the September 2015 FIDE Executive Board as a special annex. Here they demonstrate four major sponsors for 2016: Goldman Sachs Investment Banking, Audi, E.ON, and Isklar Water. Regarding the World Championship specifically, the report says "Agon has secured a prize fund (€2,000,000) and is working on developing sponsorship contracts. We’ll inform the Board and, if approved, announce the city and venue in November of 2015, exactly a year before the championship. We are looking at New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. We are also working with ESPN and Sky Sports to make sure the Championship is on TV."

Ilyumzhinov's suspended authority in FIDE and its aftermath

However, all plans were then considered to be on hold, as on November 25, 2015 Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was named a Specially Designated National by the United States Department of the Treasury (Office of Foreign Assets Control), which in particular prohibits US persons from transacting with him. Ilyumzhinov commented that the action was a provocation, as he was to be in New York on the ensuing Sunday to sign the contract for the World Championship. Agon's news website declared that the sanctions would "probably not" affect the organization of the World Championship in the United States. In an emergency FIDE Presidential Board meeting in early December, Ilyumzhinov temporarily suspended his authority in FIDE, delegating this to Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos. The CEO of Agon, Ilya Merenzon, commented that this should make it easier to finalize a World Championship deal in the USA, but by early January (40 days after Merenzon's original deadline), there had been no announced progress with concluding a deal. All that had been seen from FIDE is a January 8 news item briefly saying that Agon "has launched a site and an official broadcasting platform for the World Chess Championship cycle events" (worldchess.com), when in fact this site had become operational in early October 2015.

Vladimir Kramnik noted that the timing of the sanctions was particularly onerous to FIDE, saying "A couple of months ago, I had a private conversation with a big American businessman who had been one of the initiators of this enterprise. He confirmed to me that the sponsors were ready to support the match - and perhaps even further major chess events in the USA. Then, the sanctions came just a few days before the conclusion." Kramnik also hypothesized that Garry Kasparov might have been behind the sanctions as revenge for the 2014 FIDE elections, an idea that Kasparov hotly denied.

In the FIDE-Agon contract (3.3b) there is a specific mention that a proposed event sponsor who has been sanctioned by the US Treasury for terrorism sponsorship can be rejected for that very reason, though this would only be applicable to Ilyumzhinov via analogy, for instance as an indication of a violation of (2.2.11) of the FIDE Code of Ethics ("Any conduct likely to injure or discredit the reputation of FIDE, its events, organizers, participants, sponsors or that will enhance the goodwill which attaches to the same").

Delays lead to skepticism

Remembering the failed 2014 bidding process, and given that Merenzon's desire to announce the World Championship one year in advance had passed, there was some skepticism voiced among top players that FIDE/Agon's plans for the World Championship in the USA in November 2016 would indeed materialize as hoped. For instance, on January 7, 2016 in an interview with Candidate Hikaru Nakamura with commentator Alex Yermolinsky, it was mentioned that the finalized plans for the World Championship could depend on who the challenger would be, and that if an American (Caruana or Nakamura) did not win the Candidates tournament, then probably the match would not be in the United States after all.

The President of the Russian Chess Federation, Andrey Filatov, echoed these sentiments a few days later in an interview with Russia Sport that was then translated into English and published as a FIDE news item, saying that negotiations with the United States had been suspended, and that a final agreement concerning the World Championship would only be reached in March. In response, the head of Agon (Ilya Merenzon) immediately launched a news brief to rebut this, again reiterating that the World Championship will take place from November 9–30, 2016 in the United States, with a joint announcement of the host city by Agon/FIDE to occur later in January.

Culmination

Finally, on March 1, 2016, The Wall Street Journal broke the news that New York City would host the match. However, Merenzon declined to identify the sponsors. Essentially, he stated that Agon was in line with Carlsen's manager on associating him with American companies, though finding a major US sponsor has little precedent. Senior chess photographer and journalist David Llada immediately criticized the lack of sponsorship details as "very unprofessional", as the announcement is seen as more of a statement of intent as no venue is specified either. However, this is not uncommon with FIDE, to name cities first and let details work out later, as can be seen in the Candidates Tournament 2016 planning.

Candidates Tournament

Main article: Candidates Tournament 2016

The Candidates Tournament was held on 11-30 March 2016 in Moscow, Russia, with FIDE's commercial partner Agon as the official organizer, with support from the Russian Chess Federation.

The tournament was contested as a double round-robin over 14 games, with rest days after Games 3, 6, 9, and 12. The winner of this 8-player Candidates Tournament will be the challenger for the 2016 World Chess Championship against Magnus Carlsen.

Qualifiers

There were five different qualification paths to the Candidates Tournament. In order of priority, these were: loser of the World Chess Championship 2014 match, the top two finishers in the Chess World Cup 2015, the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15, next two highest rated players (average FIDE rating on the 12 monthly lists from January to December 2015, with at least 30 games played) who played in Chess World Cup 2015 or FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15, and one player nominated by the organizers (Agon).

Qualification path	Player	Age	Rating	World #
Loser of the World Chess Championship 2014 match	Viswanathan Anand	46	2762	12
Winner of the Chess World Cup 2015	Sergey Karjakin	26	2760	13
Runner-up of the Chess World Cup 2015	Peter Svidler	39	2757	16
The top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15	Fabiano Caruana	23	2794	3
	Hikaru Nakamura	28	2790	6
The top two players with highest average 2015 rating who played in World Cup or Grand Prix	Veselin Topalov	41	2780	8
	Anish Giri	21	2793	4
Wild card nomination of Organizers (Agon), with FIDE rating in July 2015 at least 2725	Levon Aronian	33	2786	7

Results

Pos	Player	Pld	Pts		KAR	CAR	ANA	SVI	ARO	GIR	NAK	TOP
1	Sergey Karjakin (RUS)	14	8.5		—	1  ½	1  0	½  ½	½  ½	½  ½	1  ½	1  ½
2	Fabiano Caruana (USA)	14	7.5		½  0	—	1  ½	½  ½	½  ½	½  ½	1  ½	½  ½
3	Viswanathan Anand (IND)	14	7.5		1  0	½  0	—	1  ½	1  ½	½  ½	½  0	1  ½
4	Peter Svidler (RUS)	14	7		½  ½	½  ½	½  0	—	½  1	½  ½	½  ½	½  ½
5	Levon Aronian (ARM)	14	7		½  ½	½  ½	½  0	0  ½	—	½  ½	1  ½	½  1
6	Anish Giri (NED)	14	7		½  ½	½  ½	½  ½	½  ½	½  ½	—	½  ½	½  ½
7	Hikaru Nakamura (USA)	14	7		½  0	½  0	1  ½	½  ½	½  0	½  ½	—	1  1
8	Veselin Topalov (BUL)	14	4.5		½  0	½  ½	½  0	½  ½	0  ½	½  ½	0  0	—

Championship match

Match regulations

The match regulations have been put forth by FIDE. Draws are not permitted before move 30, except by repetition of moves.

Sponsorship

According to Section 12.2 of the Regulations, no sponsor may conflict with the regulations of the International Olympic Committee. This could preclude various alcohol and tobacco companies, though Beluga Noble Russian Vodka was a partner of the Candidates Tournament. The dress code regulations (6.5) also prohibit individual player sponsors from conflicting. To date, no specific World Championship sponsors have been announced by Agon, though four (general) sponsors were listed in their September 2015 report.

Head to head record

Prior to the match Carlsen and Karjakin have played 19 games at classical time control. Carlsen has won three, Karjakin - one. 15 games ended in a draw.