World champions and World rapid and blitz champions will be among the 24 players that will make up next year’s pilot edition of the Total World Chess Championship Tour, a new tour jointly organised by FIDE and Norway Chess.
The world chess governing body announced on Tuesday that there would be different paths to qualify for the tour. Both the World open and women’s champions, D. Gukesh and Ju Wenjun, have already qualified. The others will be picked from the World rapid and blitz championships, the Candidates (open and women) and FIDE Circuit; top players based on FIDE rating will also be included.
The tour will be played across the three formats: classical, rapid and blitz. But the classical format has been reduced to a shorter time control of 45 minutes, though.
The tour carries a prize fund of $750,000 for each of the three events, besides $450,000 for the finals.
Published – December 10, 2025 04:40 am IST
