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

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