Candidates 2020 - FIDE declares "safety is our priority"

I'm calling it now. The tournament will be canceled midway through it. Probably after the 6th round or so if I had to put an exact date on it.

No matter how unpopular I support the event. Its 8 players+teams. To be honest what Else to do theese days. How ever I dont support live audience. Nor the exclution of Radjabov, although it was his own choise. MVL can actually win it. I really hope Grishuk wins, but guess Caruana will take it once more. Next candidates will probably include Alireza F. I think he may be an actual contender for the title if he continues hes development.

@djxejms I believe Fabi arrived in Russia before that measure was put in place.

Hard to make a proper judgement but I think this time, Fide is totally wrong. No matter what, you can´t say safety is priority if you allow the Candidates match starts. Many events around the world are postponed, so this event should have the same fate.

I guess this match wouldnt be as good as always because players have the warnings in mind.

Hope any major thing will happen.

I think that the players should have been allowed but everyone else should have been banned from the event.

Yes agreed. An 8 player event is not so risky. But all the spectators and officials should have stayed home and only essential staff to run things. The whole event could easily have taken place within an environment in which all participants and those running things were quarantined from the rest of the world and kept playing chess for months until this whole thing was over.

@jogelu. What do you mean when saying you hope any major thing will happend? Does that mean you wish some of the players get infected? Its totally OK to disagree with the decition, but hoping other ppl gets infected is kinda out of line.

@rfw Kids do get infected, and while they have been spared the damage (possibly due to constantly fighting coronaviruses), they can easily transmit to adults.

@JulianProleiko I kind of agree...8 players only and their seconds is reasonable, but it's quite austere to think that there would be no media present.

Peter Heine Nielsen put it best: "The probability of any of the Candidates winning the event is significantly lower than that of the event being cancelled."

@JulianProleiko #35

I think business interests of the sponsors get in the way. But yes they should have tried alternative setups to mitigate the risks.