The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The winner of the Candidates earns the right to a match for the World Championship against the incumbent World Champion. Before 1993 it was contested as a triennial tournament; almost always held every third year from 1950 to 1992 inclusive. After the split of the World Championship in the early 1990s, the cycles were disrupted, even after the reunification of the titles in 2006. Since 2013 it has settled into a 2-year cycle: qualification for Candidates during the odd numbered year, Candidates played early in the even numbered year, and the World Championship match played late in the even numbered year. The latter half of the 2020 Candidates Tournament got suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was only played in April 2021. The latest tournament, the 2022 Candidates Tournament, took place as scheduled in 2022. Precursors Before 1950, a number of tournaments acted as de facto candidates tournaments: The London 1883 chess tournament established Johannes Zukertort and Wilhelm Steinitz as the best two players in the world, and was one of the important events leading to the first official world championship match between the two, in 1886. The Saint Petersburg 1895-96 chess tournament, in which world champion Emanuel Lasker finished first and Steinitz finished second, led to Steinitz gaining support for an 1897 rematch, which Lasker won. The AVRO 1938 chess tournament was held partly to choose a challenger for Alexander Alekhine. Paul Keres won on tie-breaks, but World War II prevented the match from happening. Organization The number of players in the tournament varied over the years, between eight and fifteen players. Most of these qualified from Interzonal tournaments, though some gained direct entry without having to play the Interzonal. The first Interzonal/Candidates World Championship cycle began in 1948. Before 1965, the tournament was organized in a round-robin format. From 1965 on, the tournament was played as knockout matches, spread over several months. In 1995–1996, the defending FIDE champion (Anatoly Karpov) also entered the Candidates, in the semi-finals, so the winner was the FIDE world champion. During its 1993 to 2006 split from FIDE, the "Classical" World Championship also held three Candidates Tournaments (in 1994–1995, 1998 and 2002) under a different sponsor and