Armenia’s Levon Aronian is one of the eight players participating in the 2016 FIDE World Chess Candidates Tournament, that opened yesterday in Moscow, to see who will challenge world chess champ Magnus Carlsen at the World Championship 2016 this November in New York.

Aronian was chosen as a wild card entry by the organizers, the Tashir Group, owned by businessman Samvel Karapetyan.

This is the reason why the tournament is being held in Moscow and why Aronian was picked by the organizers and not Vladimir Kramnik, a former world chess champ who represents Russia.

The 2016 Candidates include six of the World’s top-ten rated grandmasters, representing six countries.

Here are the candidates with their current (March 1, 2016) ratings and their current world rankings:

The guaranteed prize fund of the Candidates Tournament will be in excess of 420,000 USD. First prize is €95,000, second €88,000, third €75,000, fourth €55,000, fifth €40,000, sixth €28,000, seventh €22,000 and eighth €17,000.

Today’s matches will see Karjakin vs Svidler, Nakamura vs Caruana, Giri vs Aronian, and Anand vs Toplaov.