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Dark horse
Before the 2020 Candidates Tournament began, Alekseenko was interviewed by the sports.ru website. According to an English translation of that interview, Alekseenko said, “I am satisfied with the role of a ‘dark horse’ in this tournament, no one expects great results from me and there is no additional pressure.”
Alekseenko learned chess at age 4, from his grandfather, and played in his first tournament at age 7. He had achieved grandmaster norms by 2012 and the rating necessary for the title in 2015. Compared to the seven other Candidates, Alekseenko is a relative unknown. His opponents will have a harder time preparing for him than he will have preparing for them. As he said in his sports.ru interview, “There is a lot of information about them, the same openings have been played for many years. And I have two times less games, and a few games with strong chess players, and there is no full-fledged repertoire you can play on this.”
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Instant grandmaster
As Diana Mihajlova’s thorough profile of Wang Hao (part one is here; part two is here) stated, Hao jumped from untitled to grandmaster “bypassing both the FM and IM titles.” Becoming a grandmaster at age 16 was a high point in Hao’s already impressive junior chess career. For example, at age 14, Hao won team gold and an individual gold as China’s first board in the Under-16 Olympiad.
2019 Grand Swiss
Wang Hao qualified for the 2020 Candidates Tournament by winning the 2019 FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss with 8 out of 11, on tiebreak over 2018 World Championship Challenger Fabiano Caruana and ahead of World Champion Magnus Carlsen, who tied for third place with 7.5.