2024 FIDE Circuit

2024 FIDE Circuit
Duration	28 December 2023 – 15 December 2024

The 2024 FIDE Circuit is a system comprising the top chess tournaments in 2024, which serves as a qualification path for the Candidates Tournament 2026. Players receive points based on their performance and the strength of the tournament. A player's final Circuit score is the sum of their seven best results of the year. The winner of the Circuit qualifies for the Candidates Tournament 2026.

Tournament eligibility

A FIDE-rated individual standard tournament is eligible for the Circuit if it meets the following criteria:

1. Finish between 1 January 2024 and 15 December 2024.
2. Has at least 8 players.
3. Has at least 7 rounds (4 rounds for knockout events).
4. The 8 highest-rated players have an average standard rating of at least 2550 at the start of tournament. This average is referred to as TAR (tournament average rating).
5. Players represent at least 3 national federations.
6. Not more than 50% of the 20 highest-rated players (or all players if fewer than 20) represent one federation.

The Circuit also includes the following tournaments:

• The World Chess Championship 2024.
• National Championships that meet points 1 to 4 in above criteria.
• World Rapid Championship.
• World Blitz Championship.
• Continental Rapid Championships.
• Continental Blitz Championships.
• Other Rapid and Blitz tournaments that meet the above criteria, except that the TAR must be at least 2700.

Points system

Event points

Circuit points obtained by a player from a tournament are calculated as follows:

$P=B\times k\times w$

where:

• $P$ - Points obtained by player from the tournament
• $B$ - Basic points
• $k$ - Tournament strength factor, calculated as $k=(TAR-2500)/100$
• $w$ - Tournament weighting
  • 1.0 - Standard classical tournaments
  • 0.8 - World Rapid Championships
  • 0.6 - World Blitz Championships and other Rapid tournaments
  • 0.5 - Mixed Rapid & Blitz tournaments
  • 0.4 - Blitz tournaments

Basic points

Basic points for a tournament are awarded depending on the tournament format:

• Swiss-system: Top 8 (within top half of ranking), ties included.
• Round-robin: Top 3 with ties (with the exception of the Candidates Tournament 2024 where points are awarded to all players).
• Knockout: Third round or later, up to 8 players.

Points are awarded as follows:

1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
11/10	8	7	6	5	4	3	2

• If the tournament is won outright, basic points for 1st place would be 11 points. Otherwise, 10 basic points would be used for calculation.
• For tied positions, basic points are calculated as 50% of points for final ranking as determined by tournament's tie-break rules, plus 50% of the sum of basic points assigned for the tied places divided by the number of tied players. If no tie-break rule is applied, basic points are 100% shared equally among all tied players.
• For round-robin tournaments (other than Candidates), 4th and below are worth zero points for tied players calculation.

FIDE World Championship points

For World Chess Championship 2024, the winner will get points calculated as 1st place basic points multipled by the strength factor, but with its TAR value using winner's performance rating instead.

Player's total and ranking

A player's point total for the ranking is the sum of their best 7 tournaments with the following criteria:

• If player has 6 or more tournaments to count:
  • No more than 5 tournaments with participation of less than 50 players can be counted.
  • No more than 2 rapid/blitz tournaments can be counted.
• If player has 5 tournaments or less:
  • No more than 4 tournaments with participation of less than 50 players can be counted.
  • No more than 1 rapid/blitz tournament can be counted.

Tournaments that could be included in player's results are as follows:

• Official FIDE tournaments.
• National Championships.
• Other eligible tournaments, counting all tournaments with minimum TAR of 2650 and up to two lower tournaments per host country.

Tournaments

Eligible tournaments as of 21 May 2024.

2024 FIDE Circuit – Eligible Tournaments

Tournament	Location	Date	Type	P#	TAR	Winner
Hastings Masters	Hastings	28 December 2023 – 5 January 2024		105	2552	Abhijeet Gupta
Tata Steel Masters	Wijk aan Zee	12–28 January		14	2752+3⁄4	Wei Yi
Tata Steel Challengers	Wijk aan Zee	12–28 January		14	2637+3⁄4	Leon Luke Mendonca
Djerba Masters	Djerba	18–25 February		8	2590+1⁄2	Daniel Dardha
Prague Masters	Prague	27 February – 7 March		10	2727+1⁄4	Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Prague Challengers	Prague	27 February – 7 March		10	2575+3⁄4	Ediz Gurel
Prague Open	Prague	27 February – 7 March		267	2567+3⁄4	Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis
Shenzhen Masters	Shenzhen	29 February – 7 March		8	2698	Bu Xiangzhi
Cappelle-la-Grande Open	Cappelle-la-Grande	2–8 March		382	2562+5⁄8	Abhimanyu Puranik
Aeroflot Open	Moscow	3–7 March		142	2679+7⁄8	Amin Tabatabaei
Reykjavik Open	Reykjavík	15–21 March		363	2602+3⁄4	Bogdan-Daniel Deac
Fagernes Chess International	Fagernes	24–31 March		100	2568	Rinat Jumabayev
Torneo International de Ajedrez de Roda	La Roda	27–31 March		210	2603+7⁄8	Aravindh Chithambaram
Grenke Open	Karlsruhe	March 26 – April 1		935	2689+1⁄4	Hans Niemann
Open Internacional de Ajedrez Semana Santa	Alicante	March 27 – April 1		417	2574+1⁄2	Kirill Alekseenko
Menorca Open	Menorca	April 2–7		284	2676+5⁄8	Arjun Erigaisi
Candidates	Toronto	April 3–22	FIDE	8	2744+7⁄8	Gukesh D
Sunway Formentera Chess Festival	Formentera	April 9–19		51	2581+3⁄4	Alexander Donchenko
Spring Chess Classic	St. Louis	April 11–20		10	2624+7⁄8	Leon Luke Mendonca
TePe Sigeman & Co chess tournament	Malmö	April 27 – May 3		8	2676+7⁄8	Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Sardinia World Chess Festival	Orosei, Sardinia	April 27 – May 4		168	2658+1⁄2	Daniel Dardha
Dubai Police Global Chess Challenge	Dubai	May 3–13		135	2694+3⁄8	Pranav V
GCT Superbet Poland Rapid & Blitz	Warsaw	May 6–13	Rapid & Blitz	10	2762+3⁄8	Magnus Carlsen
Chinese Chess Championship	Xinghua	May 6–16	National	12	2570+1⁄4	Wang Yue
Sharjah Masters	Sharjah	May 13–23		88	2720+5⁄8	Bardiya Daneshvar
Chess Festival Munich	Munich	May 19 – June 2		126
Budapesti Tavaszi Fesztivál	Budapest	May 23–31		210
Americas Continental Championship	Medellin	May 24 – June 2	FIDE		2582+3⁄8
Dubai Open	Dubai	May 25 – June 2
Vladimir Dvorkovich Memorial	Aktobe	May 25 – June 2
National Open	Las Vegas	June 5–9
UzChess Cup Masters	Tashkent	June 6–14
Stepan Avagyan Memorial	Jermuk	June 9–18
Teplice Open	Teplice	June 15–23
GCT Romania	Bucharest	June 24 – July 6		10
GCT Croatia	Zagreb	July 8–15	Rapid & Blitz
Biel Chess Festival	Biel/Bienne	July 13–26
DOLE Open/NEXTLANE Grand Prix	Aix-en-Provence	July 20–28
GCT St. Louis Rapid and Blitz	St. Louis	August 10–17	Rapid & Blitz
Internationale Dortmunder Schachtage	Dortmund	August 10–18
Akiba Rubinstein Chess Festival	Polanica-Zdrój	August 17–25
Sinquefield Cup	St. Louis	August 17–31		10
Abu Dhabi Masters	Abu Dhabi
Ibero-American Championships	Linares	September 24 – October 2
WR Chess Masters Cup	London	October 14–17
WR Chess Masters	Dubai	October 31 – November 3
WR Chess Masters Cup – DSK Open	Düsseldorf	November 22–29
US Masters	Charlotte	November 27 – December 1
London Chess Classic	London	November 29 – December 8
London Chess Classic – Open Section	London	November 29 – December 8
Zurcher Weihnachtsopen	Zürich	December 26–30

Ranking

At the end of 2024, the best player in the Circuit will qualify for the 2026 Candidates Tournament, provided that he have played 5 eligible tournaments, including at least 4 in standard time controls.

Top 20 as of 22 May 2024

No.	Player	Points	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	Arjun Erigaisi	57.60	Shenzhen Masters 3rd – 15.18	Grenke Open T 6th-7th – 6.99	Menorca Open 1st – 16.19	Malmö T 2nd-3rd – 14.00	GCT Poland 5th – 0.00	Sharjah Masters 7th – 5.24
2	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	55.43	Tata Steel Masters T 2nd-4th – 14.22	Prague Masters 1st – 25.00	Malmö 1st – 16.21	GCT Poland 6th – 0.00
3	Gukesh D	41.16	Tata Steel Masters T 2nd-4th – 14.22	Candidates 1st – 26.94	GCT Poland 10th – 0.00
4	Hans Niemann	35.17	Djerba 2nd – 7.69	Grenke Open 1st – 20.82	Dubai Police Global 7th – 6.66	Sharjah Masters 15th – 0.00
5	Daniel Dardha	34.89	Tata Steel Challengers T 2nd-3rd – 10.33	Djerba 1st – 8.60	Menorca Open 8th – 1.89	Sardinia Festival 1st – 14.07
6	Amin Tabatabaei	34.88	Aeroflot Open 1st – 19.79	Dubai Police Global 6th – 7.64	Sharjah Masters 5th – 7.45
7	Wei Yi	31.04	Tata Steel Masters 1st – 20.54	GCT Poland 2nd – 10.50
8	Volodar Murzin	29.19	Menorca Open 17th – 0.13	Sardinia Festival 3rd – 11.69	Sharjah Masters 2nd – 17.37
9	Leon Luke Mendonca	28.89	Tata Steel Challengers 1st – 15.15	Spring Chess Classic 1st – 13.74	Sharjah Masters 28th – 0.00
10	Aravindh Chithambaram	26.17	La Roda 1st – 9.52	Menorca Open 16th – 0.13	Dubai Police Global 2nd – 16.52	Sharjah Masters 13th – 0.00
11	Pranav V	24.40	Formentera 3rd – 5.93	Dubai Police Global 1st – 18.47	Sharjah Masters 23rd – 0.00
12	Vladimir Fedoseev	23.75	Grenke Open 3rd – 10.30	Menorca Open 4th – 9.27	Sardinia Festival 6th – 4.18	Sharjah Masters 41st – 0.00
13	R Praggnanandhaa	23.60	Prague Masters T 2nd-4th – 11.36	Candidates 5th – 12.24	GCT Poland 4th – 0.00
14	Kirill Alekseenko	22.62	Semana Santa Open 1st – 8.20	Menorca Open 2nd – 14.42
15	Maksim Chigaev	21.95	Grenke Open 5th – 8.41	Menorca Open 3rd – 13.54
16	Vasyl Ivanchuk	21.10	Djerba T 3rd-4th – 3.17	Semana Santa Open 4th – 2.98	Formentera 2nd – 6.34	Dubai Police Global 5th – 8.61	Sharjah Masters 59th – 0.00
17	Yu Yangyi	20.31	Shenzhen Masters 2nd – 16.17	Dubai Police Global 22nd – 0.00	Sharjah Masters 8th – 4.14
18	Bardiya Daneshvar	19.58	Aeroflot Open 53rd – 0.00	Sharjah Masters 1st – 19.58
19	Kirill Shevchenko	19.47	Grenke Open T 6th-7th – 6.99	Sardinia Festival 2nd – 12.48	GCT Poland 7th – 0.00
20	Hikaru Nakamura	18.37	Candidates 2nd – 18.37

•  : Player qualified for 2026 Candidates Tournament via this path.

See also

• 2023 FIDE Circuit

External links

• FIDE Circuit