Eight of the world's top chess grandmasters have converged on Moscow to compete for the right to challenge reigning World Chess Federation (FIDE) champion Magnus Carlsen for the championship title, the FIDE website reported.
Going into the final round on Monday, Sergei Karjakin of Russia and Fabiano Caruana of the United States lead the field and are set to play each other. If the game ends in a draw, the winner is determined by a series of tiebreakers that take into account head-to-head records and total wins.
From March 10 to 30, Moscow's historic Central Telegraph building has hosted the FIDE Candidates Tournament — a double round-robin tournament over 14 games. The grandmasters are competing for the right to play against Carlsen in November, a match that will determine the 2016 world champion.
The eight participants in the Candidates tournament are all ranked among the top 17: Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Anish Giri of the Netherlands, Viswanathan Anand of India, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana of the United States, Sergei Karjakin and Peter Svidler of Russia and Levon Aronian of Armenia.
The field includes six players currently ranked in the top 10. They are competing for about $460,000 in prize money.
Founded in 1924, FIDE is made up of 186 international chess federations.
