Candidates Tournament is created to determine the challenger of the current world chess champion Magnus Carlsen. There are 5 ways to qualify to the Candidates, first is the loser in the last world championship match Sergey Karjakin, second will be the 2 finalists in World Cup, third will be the top 2 in FIDE Grand-Prix, 4th will be the top 2 by average FIDE standard rating from Jan - Dec, 2017, and 5th will be one player nominated by the organizer, for a total of 8 players.
The winner of the Candidates Tournament will become the challenger to Magnus Carlsen for the 2018 World Chess Championships. For details check the rules and regulations from FIDE.
| Rank | Name | AveRating | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Live |
| 1 | Caruana, Fabiano | 2810.18 | 2827.00 | 2827.00 | 2817.00 | 2817.00 | 2802.00 | 2805.00 | 2807.00 | 2807.00 | 2799.00 | 2793.80 |
| 2 | So, Wesley | 2810.08 | 2808.00 | 2822.00 | 2822.00 | 2822.00 | 2815.00 | 2812.00 | 2810.00 | 2810.00 | 2792.00 | 2787.80 |
| 3 | Kramnik, Vladimir | 2807.48 | 2811.00 | 2811.00 | 2811.00 | 2811.00 | 2811.00 | 2808.00 | 2812.00 | 2803.00 | 2803.00 | 2793.80 |
| 4 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2796.64 | 2796.00 | 2796.00 | 2803.00 | 2803.00 | 2795.00 | 2795.00 | 2791.00 | 2789.00 | 2804.00 | 2794.40 |
| 5 | Aronian, Levon | 2790.80 | 2780.00 | 2785.00 | 2774.00 | 2774.00 | 2789.00 | 2793.00 | 2809.00 | 2799.00 | 2802.00 | 2803.00 |