★★★ INTRO ★★★

The 2016 World Chess Championship was a match between (will be) 25 year old defending champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway and 26 year old challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia.

★★★ QUALIFICATION ★★★

The 8 players in the Candidates tournament will be as follows: the loser of the 2014 World Chess Championship, the 2 finalists of the 2015 World Cup, the top 2 players in the FIDE Grand Prix tournament, 2 nominees by rating and a wild card. Here are the current players:

- Loser of the 2014 WCC: Viswanathan Anand

- World Cup finalists: Sergey Karjakin and Peter Svidler

- Top 2 FIDE Grand Prix tournament qualifiers: Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura

- Top 2 by rating: Veselin Topalov and Anish Giri

- Wild card: Levon Aronian

If any player should withdraw, the replacements (in order) would have been Dmitry Jakovenko (3rd place in the FIDE Grand Prix series) followed by rating replacements. The first 3 rating replacements currently are Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk and Wesley So.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...

★★★ CONDITIONS ★★★

★★★ NOTABLE GAMES ★★★

Game 8: Carlsen vs Karjakin, 2016

Game 10: Carlsen vs Karjakin, 2016

Game 15: Karjakin vs Carlsen, 2016

★★★ FINAL ★★★

Entering Game 12 (Carlsen vs Karjakin, 2016), the match was tied at 5 1/2-5 1/2. If either player won that game, they would be declared World Champion. Carlsen had white in that game, and it was drawn. The match entered into rapids.

At rapid time controls, the first 2 games were drawn, with Carlsen striking in Game 3 of the rapid match with black. (Karjakin vs Carlsen, 2016) He needed just a draw with white in Game 4 of the rapids, to defend his title. He did with style, scoring a victory, winning the rapids 3-1, and 9-7 overall. (Carlsen vs Karjakin, 2016)

★★★ MINI TABLE ★★★

Carlsen 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 0 1/2 1 1/2 1/2 1/2 | 1/2 1/2 1 1 (3 wins, 1 loss and 12 draws) <56.25% score>

Karjakin 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1 1/2 0 1/2 1/2 1/2 | 1/2 1/2 0 0 (1 win, 3 losses and 12 draws) <43.75% score>

★★★ OTHER LINKS ★★★

See also: Carlsen - Karjakin World Championship Match (2016)

Head to Head Record Prior to 2016: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

Previous World Championship: Game Collection: 2014 World Chess Championship

Next World Championship: Game Collection: 2018 World Chess Championship