FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky, on Monday, responded to Hikaru Nakamura’s recent explosive claim criticising the Candidates’ rating qualification spot. Nakumara accused FIDE of maintaining the ratings spot only to make way for Magnus Carlsen’s return. Sutovsky said the claims were incorrect.
“Hikaru often makes statements in good faith, but without knowing all the facts, and that’s a problem. Of course, he has a larger platform, which makes it difficult to refute him from a smaller one. But that’s… well, acceptable,” Sutovsky said.
Sutovsky also dismissed Nakamura’s claim that the rules were designed in a way to favour Carlsen.
He added: “He (Hikaru) claims we designed the rating spot for Magnus, but that’s completely illogical. This rating qualification has existed for years – there was always a rating spot (in fact, there used to be two). If it were specifically for Magnus, we would have limited it to only the world No. 1. Instead, the regulation states either No. 1 or No. 2 can qualify by rating. Ironically, one could argue we actually designed it for Hikaru in this case – why else would we leave it open to the top two?”
“Let me explain the logic: In the previous cycle, the highest-rated player who didn’t qualify through other paths could enter (that’s how Alireza Firouzja qualified, though his method wasn’t entirely kosher – he was around World No. 6 in the world at the time). We later decided this was unfair. We maintain the rating spot to ensure the Candidates include players clearly among the world’s best – the top eight. However, we realised we shouldn’t go all the way down to No. 6 or No. 7, where rating differences become negligible. It’s more logical to reward players who nearly qualified through other means. That’s why we limited it to the top two – the Candidates simply shouldn’t exclude the world No. 2.”
“The reasoning is straightforward: It had nothing to do with Magnus. We never expected his return – why would he come back now? Would he suddenly return after losing 50 rating points? The suggestion makes no sense.”
The FIDE rating spot is determined by a six-month average from the period of August 2025 to January 2026. Hence, to qualify, players out to play at least 40 games during that period, with a minimum of 15 games across consecutive rating lists.
“This isn’t the first time Hikaru has made factual claims without proper knowledge. When we introduced the FIDE Circuit, he immediately called it ‘a stupid system’, claiming he could just win some random open with a 2900 performance. Only later did he realise you can’t earn many points in weekly tournaments – he simply hadn’t read the rules properly. I suspect the same happened here,” he added.
