Viswanathan Anand won the tournament and the title of World Chess Champion.

[3] At the same time FIDE announced that, as compensation for being denied entry to the 2007 tournament, Topalov would have special privileges in the World Chess Championship 2010 cycle.

It was a knock-out tournament of mini-matches, in the style of the FIDE World Chess Championships 1998-2004.

However, once 16 players were left, they were no longer immediately eliminated, but played further mini-matches to establish places 1 through 16.

The remaining ten places went to the highest finishers at the 2005 World Cup who had not otherwise qualified (see above).

The Candidates tournament, held in Elista, Kalmykia, Russia, from 26 May to 14 June 2007, was originally to consist of a two-round knockout with one player qualifying from each quarter of the draw.

[6] However this decision was reversed, and the tournament consisted of two rounds of matches as originally planned.

Matches were best of six games, at normal time controls (40/120, then 20/60, then 15 minutes + 30 seconds per move).