PHOTO: FIDE, Lennart Ootes
“Chess Doctor – The World Cup has just finished, very exciting games! I did not know until afterwards that the first two finishers went on to the Candidates. This fact brought the question to my mind: what is the full list of paths players can qualify for the Candidates, and can it be improved?”
The process is considerably less complicated than it may seem at a quick glance. An eight-player double round-robin, the first seat is taken up by the runner up of the most recent World Championship Match. And the organizers always get a wildcard pick (generally limited to a certain rating range). Typically, there is also a spot for the player with the highest average rating throughout a certain time period, but for the next Candidates (2022), this was replaced with an automatic spot for GM Teimour Radjabov.
Next on the list, the top two finishers in the Chess World Cup advance directly to the Candidates. If the incumbent World Champion is among the finalists, the second qualifier is decided by the third-place match. The World Cup is a knockout match tournament, meaning the winner of each individual match advances to the next round. Starting with only two classical games, most matches will continue with shorter time control tiebreaker games.
This begs the obvious question, “How can I qualify for the World Cup?” For starters, an automatic spot is given to the Overall, Women’s, and Junior World Champions. Four players qualify thanks to their top placement in the previous World Cup. 13 spots are allotted for those with an astronomically high average rating. Each official FIDE federation can nominate one player for the event. The most realistic chance us mortals have of qualifying for such a top-flight event lies in the Continental Qualifier tournaments. They are open to all who register, though certainly not a walk in the park for any chess player!
Recently the FIDE Grand Swiss has emerged to provide not just one but two spots for the top two finishers. This event, with the same group of organizers that put on the Isle of Man Open, brings together the world’s top 100 on the rating list, as well as talented and ambitious players that are sufficiently high ranked, and is always interesting to watch!
The final method of qualification is through the FIDE Grand Prix Cycle. The Grand Prix gathers a total of 24 players (for the 2022 edition), to compete in a series of tournaments for “Grand Prix Points”. In normal times there are four tournaments in the cycle, of which each full-fledged participant can choose to participate in three. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, however, in this cycle there will be a series of three tournaments held back-to-back in the same city.
Players can qualify for the Grand Prix through one of four avenues. Eleven spots are given for rating, there are two wildcard nominees, six spots from the FIDE Grand Swiss, and five spots from the World Cup. For these latter two, the precious seats are divided among the participants who have not already qualified for the Candidates.
Now that we have fleshed out the various paths chess players can take to qualify for the Candidates, it’s time to answer the second question: how is the system working right now and is there any room for improvement?
Right from the start, I feel that the World Cup, while very exciting to watch, should not be included in the World Championship Cycle with its current format. It would be better to increase the number of classical time control games in each match from two to four, if the outcome hadn’t been decided by the initial duo. It would certainly give more time to make it obvious who of the two is the stronger chess player!
The FIDE Grand Prix unfortunately underwent a change for the worse in the 2019 cycle. Instead of individual round robin competitions, last time around the organizers opted instead for each tournament to be a knockout match event. As in the World Cup, two classical games were followed by increasingly quicker tiebreakers. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe that the World Championship should be decided by classical chess alone. The previous Grand Prix format is much more suitable. The rules for the 2022 cycle have not been definitively laid out at the time of writing, but I suspect that for this edition there will not be a change.
It is understandable that these days travel restrictions leave organizers in a quandary, but even so an effort should be made to ensure that the Grand Prix can return to its classical round robin format in the very near future.
Hope this helps answer the original question! As always, thanks for reading and feel free to submit your own questions by clicking the button below.
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