In particular, there were complaints about noise in the playing venue, bathroom facilities, hotel accommodations, and even television screens with commentary on the tournament that were visible to the players during the games.

[2] In order of priority, these are: loser of the World Chess Championship 2016 match, the top two finishers in the Chess World Cup 2017, the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2017, next two highest rated players (average FIDE rating on the 12 monthly lists from January to December 2017, with at least 30 games played) who played in Chess World Cup 2017 or FIDE Grand Prix 2017, and one player nominated by the organizers (Agon).

Before the tournament, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (the highest rated player not playing, other than world champion Carlsen) considered the joint favourites to be Aronian and Caruana, and also noted that the betting markets said a similar thing.

Aronian, one of the pre-tournament favourites, had bounced back from his loss to Kramnik with a win over Karjakin, but was promptly defeated by So, and was equal last.

In a sensational round 12, the two leaders each lost for the first time: Caruana to Karjakin, and Mamedyarov to Ding Liren, who had drawn every game to that point.

Caruana had worse tie breaks than Mamedyarov and Karjakin, so he had to finish ahead of both of them to win the tournament.

[18] In the last round, Karjakin pressed hard for a win with white against Ding, but after a blunder had to scramble for a draw.

[19] In a long interview the day after the Candidates ended, Caruana discussed his pre-tournament training, which involved his long-time second Rustam Kasimdzhanov and other grandmasters Cristian Chirila, Leinier Domínguez and Alejandro Ramírez.

Caruana reviewed his progress through the tournament and was critical of his tendency to sit on the lead with overly defensive play.

He believed that such defensiveness contributed to his twelfth round loss to Karjakin, which threw the tournament open for his competitors.

However, Caruana felt that his ability to forget losses relatively quickly was important in his crucial victories against Aronian and Grischuk in the final two rounds.

Karjakin regretted his "terrible start" but thought that Caruana's eventual victory was a "quite fair" result.

Both players agreed that Caruana has his chances in the world championship match, though Carlsen remains the favorite.