Bengaluru: A day after FIDE announced changes to the World Cup format, making it shorter and faster, the world chess body removed the rating spot and the World Cup third-place qualification route from the 2028 Candidates Tournament qualification path.
The eight-player Candidates tournament determines who gets to challenge the defending champion in the World Championship.
A new Candidates qualification route has been introduced through the Total Chess World Championship Tour. The top two players in the final standings of the Tour will directly qualify for the eight-player tournament.
Created by Norway Chess, which features world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen as its flagbearer, the Tour combines fast classical, rapid and blitz formats. In effect, four out of eight Candidates tournament spots will be decided through faster time controls.
In its announcement of a shake-up in the format, Fide has provisioned for more number of players and higher prize funds in the World Cup. Fide’s latest wave of changes has left chess players and coaches. divided. While some, like American grandmaster Hans Niemann applauded the changes, some others are miffed that Fide is seemingly deprioritising classical chess, which is considered its primary asset in favour of faster time controls.
At this year’s Candidates, which Javokhir Sindarov dominated, the World Cup third-place spot – won by Andrey Esipenko while the rating spot in the tournament was awarded to Hikaru Nakamura..
All of these changes comes just ahead of the September Fide elections at the time of the Chess Olympiad. Incumbent Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich is seeking a third term in office.
In light of the changes to the World Cup format, Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri wrote on X: “A Swiss format (in the World Cup) gives every participant many guaranteed classical games instead of the possibility of travelling halfway across the world only to be eliminated after two days. That alone may make the event feel more worthwhile for many players…I’m not saying the new format is better. It may well turn out to be worse. Even if we disagree with Fide’s decisions, they don’t appear to be random. They seem to be an attempt to balance sporting fairness, logistics, commercial appeal and the global growth of the game.”
For the 2028 Women’s Candidates, the Fide Women’s Grand Swiss, the Grand Prix Series, the Fide Women’s World Cup and the Fide Circuit will award two spots each toward the eight-player tournament.
