Eight of the world's top grandmasters will come to Berlin to play in the tournament that will be contested as a double round-robin over 14 games. The winner will play a match for the title against reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in November of 2018.
The 8 players (by current rating order):
GM S. Mamedyarov (1st time)
GM V. Kramnik
GM W. So (1st time)
GM L. Aronian
GM F. Caruana
GM Ding Liren (1st time)
GM A. Grischuk
GM S. Karjakin
