FIDE announces that the deadline for player's participation in the Candidates Tournament is 26 January 2018. The event will be held in Berlin, Germany from 8 March (arrivals/opening ceremony) to 29 March 2018 (departures) and the qualifiers are:

1. Sergey Karjakin (RUS, world championship 2016 finalist)
2. Levon Aronian (ARM, world cup 2017 winner)
3. Ding Liren (CHN, world cup 2017 finalist)
4. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE, grand-prix 2017 winner)
5. Alexander Grischuk (RUS, grand-prix 2017 runner-up)
6. Fabiano Caruana (USA, rating lists 2017)
7. Wesley So (USA, rating lists 2017)
8. Vladimir Kramnik (RUS, organiser's nominee)

First reserve from the FIDE Grand-Prix standings is Teimour Radjabov (AZE).

The winner of the Candidates Tournament will challenge Magnus Carlsen for the FIDE World Championship title in the last quarter of 2018.

PLAYER'S CONTRACT (pdf)