The 2024 Chess Candidates Tournament is set to kick off on Wednesday, April 3, and the final round will be played on Friday, April 22. This is a double round-robin contest that consists of 14 rounds, and the winner will challenge Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship 2024. Ian Nepomniachtchi won the last two editions of the Candidates Tournament.
This is expected to be an exciting tournament, as four of the eight participants this year are playing their first-ever Candidates. The total prize fund for this competition is an enticing €500,000, and the winner will take home €48,000. The 2024 Candidates Tournament will take place at the Great Hall in Toronto, Canada. Magnus Carlsen announced earlier this year that he wouldn’t participate in the Candidates, so Nijat Abasov will replace the Norwegian chess grandmaster.
Here are the updated odds for the winner of the 2024 Chess Candidates competition:
The best chess bookmakers have had Fabiano Caruana as the favorite since the first release of the odds. The American chess grandmaster has won the Candidates once in 2018, and he is the only player with more than 2800 Elo ratings in this competition. Ian Nepomniachtchi has won the last two editions of the Candidates. He isn’t in his best form right now, but he is always a dangerous opponent to face.
Hikaru Nakamura has seen his odds go down from 7.0 (6/1) to 5.0 (4/1) in the last few weeks. Nakamura has focused more on streaming lately, but he always performs well in big tournaments. This will be the first-ever Candidates Tournament for R Praggnanandhaa. The Indian grandmaster has reached a new Fide rating in February, and he is expected to do well in his first Candidates, but he won’t have many winning chances.
