Top stars seek Candidates slots
From October 25 through November 5, many of the world’s best chess players are battling on the Isle of Man at the FIDE Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss. At stake in each event are two slots into the next Candidates Tournament or Women’s Candidates.
How important is this? The winner of the eight-player Candidates Tournament becomes the next World Championship Challenger!
The top seeds in the Grand Swiss are Fabiano Caruana (USA), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Alireza Firouzja (France), Anish Giri (Netherlands), and Dommaraju Gukesh (India). Nakamura is the co-leader after five rounds with 4 points, and is joined by Andrey Esipenko (Russia) and Arjun Erigaisi (India).
The Women’s Grand Swiss is headlined by Aleksandra Goryachkina (Russia), Alexandra Kosteniuk (Switzerland), Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine), Tan Zhongyi (China), and Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine). After five rounds, Bibisara Assaubayeva (Kazakhstan) is the sole leader with 4½ points.
In addition to possible Candidates qualification, the events have a combined $600,000 prize fund.
You can follow the results for both events at this link.