The Week in Chess

FIDE have announced dates for the World Chess Championship Cycles 2012-16.

The major points are that there will be world title matches in 2013, 2014 and 2016 and the moving of the FIDE Candidates tournament (still in London) from October 24 - November 12, 2012 to March 13th - 31st 2013. The previously announced dates for the London Candidates were too close for comfort to the Bilbao Final Masters and the prospective 4th London Chess Classic with the latter being put very much in doubt. The March 2013 dates always seemed ideal as there was clearly a big hole in the calendar following the demise of the Linares and Amber tournaments traditionally around these dates. Although having previously officially announced the London Candidates as being held in October-November 2012 one wonders if organisers had already started to plan things for those dates in 2013. There have for instance been reports that organisers of the Linares tournament intend to return. However in the future, provided FIDE themselves can stick to these dates, this is a big leap forward.

IM Malcolm Pein in his role as Director of the London Chess Classic responded:

"I think this is great news, not only for the London Chess Classic but for the chess community as a whole. It clearly shows the value of having a promoter working independently of FIDE. I would like to thank Andrew Paulson for his efforts over the last few weeks, he consulted widely and found a solution that is good for world chess."

Pein added that he would soon have news about the 4th London Chess Classic.

Below is the calendar in full 2012-16.