Return of the Candidates

Another exhausting day, and I really ought to go to bed, but I also need to avoid losing any more crypto by not writing a blog post, so all I really have to say is how excited I am that dates for the second half of the FIDE Candidates Tournament has been announced. I’ve been missing chess super tournaments for months, and the events surrounding the Candidates seemed especially cruel for chess viewers, given that the tournament was paused at exactly the halfway mark. Naturally I understand why, and as I wrote about in March, I don’t think the event should have gone ahead in the first place, but I am hopeful that its resumption will be significantly less fraught.

Will the players have spent six extra months preparing? Have MVL and Nepo rested on their laurels or will they both come out fighting? Can Caruana, Giri or Grischuk show they are still in contention, and can Ding remember how to play chess? (jk obvs I love Ding.) Either way, I am very excited to have some elite-tier classical chess to watch again, and I hope this time the focus can be on the games and not on the circumstances surrounding them.