The plan was that the top five from Saltsjöbaden and the five (or, as it turned out, four) losers of the FIDE World Championship Tournament (1948) would compete in the Budapest Candidates (1950). But on 12 August, before the penultimate round, FIDE decided that nine players could go to the Candidates. But Bondarevsky got sick, and when Reuben Fine, Max Euwe and Samuel Reshevsky also withdrew, eight players from Saltsjöbaden ended up against Paul Keres and Vasily Smyslov in the Budapest Candidates (1950).