FIDE announces that the Candidates Matches to determine the challenger for the next World Championship Match will be held in Kazan, Russia from 3 to 27 May 2011.

The 8 original qualifiers are GMs Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan) and Gata Kamsky (USA). In case of replacements, the 3 first reserves from the FIDE Grand-Prix 2008-2009 are respectively GMs Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Dmitry Jakovenko (Russia) and Wang Yue (China).

All the participants are requested to confirm their participation by returning their ATTACHED PLAYER'S CONTRACT signed to the FIDE Secretariat by 22 December 2010, 13:00 GMT, through fax or email and by registered post. The full technical regulations of the Candidates Matches 2011 are available on the FIDE website at the link http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=136&view=article