Two Americans, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, blasted their way into the 2015 Candidates elimination chess tournament with an opportunity to oppose Magnus Carlsen for the world championship title. Nakamura and Caruana are the winners of the fourth and final 2014-2015 Grand Prix chess tournament which was played in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Usually, the winner of the Candidates goes on to play for the world championship.
There were twelve entrants to the Grand Prix. Cuba was there with its number one player, Lenier Dominguez Perez who finished fourth in the competition, a half point behind the tied joint first place. Dominguez defeated Russia’s Alexander Grischuk in the single round robin tournament, but lost a crucial game to Baadur Jobava to essentially diminish his chances of qualifying for the rigorous Candidates.
The Grand Prix series consist of four tournaments, and participants must be in an elite category to compete. Participants are determined by FIDE, the World Chess Federation.
Each participant is obligated to compete in three of those tournaments. The points are accumulated and the persons with the highest number of points, would take part in the Candidates.
They would join the previous challenger for the World Championship title. In this instance that person would be Vishy Anand who lost the title to Carlsen in 2014.
