The 2024 FIDE Circuit was a system comprising the top chess tournaments in 2024, which served as a qualification path for the Candidates Tournament 2026. Players received points based on their performance and the strength of the tournament. A player's final Circuit score was the sum of their seven best results of the year. Fabiano Caruana scored the most points, and as winner of the 2024 Circuit qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2026.
Tournament eligibility A FIDE-rated individual standard tournament was eligible for the Circuit if it met the following criteria: Finished between 1 January 2024 and 15 December 2024. Had at least 8 players. Had at least 7 rounds (4 rounds for knockout events). The 8 highest-rated players had an average standard rating of at least 2550 at the start of the tournament. This average is referred to as TAR (tournament average rating). Players represented at least 3 national federations. Not more than 50% of the 20 highest-rated players (or all players if fewer than 20) represented one federation.
The Circuit also included the following tournaments: The World Chess Championship 2024. National Championships that met points 1 to 4 in the above criteria. World Rapid Championship. World Blitz Championship. Continental Rapid Championships. Continental Blitz Championships. Other Rapid and Blitz tournaments that met the above criteria, except that the TAR had to be at least 2700.
Points system Event points Circuit points obtained by a player from a tournament were calculated as follows:
where: - Points obtained by player from the tournament - Basic points - Tournament strength factor, calculated as - 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 were 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 were awarded to all players). Knockout: Third round or later, up to 8 players.
Points were awarded as follows: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 11/10 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 If the tournament was 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 were 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 was applied, basic points were shared equally among all tied players. For round-robin tournaments (other than the Candidates), 4th and below were worth zero points for tied players calculation.
FIDE World Championship points For the World Chess Championship 2024, the winner had points calculated as 1st place basic points multiplied by the strength factor, but with its TAR value using the winner's performance rating instead.
Player's total and ranking A player's point total for the ranking was the sum of their best 7 tournaments with the following criteria: +TournamentsStandard events with under 50 players allowedRapid/Blitz allowed1–541642752 If a player had 6 or 7 tournaments to count: No more than 4 or 5 respectively standard tournaments with the participation of less than 50 players could be counted. No more than 2 rapid/blitz tournaments could be counted. If a player had 5 tournaments or less: No more than 4 standard tournaments with participation of less than 50 players could be counted. No more than 1 rapid/blitz tournament could be counted.
Tournaments that could be included in a player's results were 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 31 December 2024. +2024 FIDE Circuit – Eligible Tournaments Tournament Location Date Type TAR Winner Hastings Hastings 28 December, 20235 January, 2024 105 2552 Abhijeet Gupta Tata Steel Masters Wijk aan Zee 12–28 January 14 Wei Yi Tata Steel Challengers Wijk aan Zee 12–28 January 14 Leon Luke Mendonca Djerba Masters Djerba 18–25 February 8 Daniel Dardha Prague Masters Prague 27 February7 March 10 Nodirbek Abdusattorov Prague Challengers Prague 27 February7 March 10 Ediz Gürel Prague Open Prague 27 February7 Mar 267 Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis Shenzhen Masters Shenzhen 29 February7 March 8 2698 Bu Xiangzhi Cappelle-la-Grande Open Cappelle-la-Grande 2–8 March 382 Abhimanyu Puranik Aeroflot Open Moscow 3–7 March 142 Amin Tabatabaei Reykjavik Open Reykjavík 15–21 March 363 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 Aravindh Chithambaram Grenke Open Karlsruhe 26 March1 April 935 Hans Niemann Open Internacional de Ajedrez Semana Santa Alicante 27 March1 April 417 Kirill Alekseenko Menorca Open Menorca 2–7 April 284 Arjun Erigaisi Candidates Toronto 3–22 April FIDE 8 Gukesh Dommaraju Sunway Formentera Formentera 9–19 April 51 Alexander Donchenko Spring Chess Classic St. Louis 11–20 April 10 Leon Luke Mendonca TePe Sigeman Malmö 27 April3 May 8 Nodirbek Abdusattorov Sardinia World Chess Festival Orosei 27 April4 May 168 Daniel Dardha Dubai Police Global Chess Challenge Dubai 3–13 May 135 Pranav V GCT Superbet Poland Rapid & Blitz Warsaw 6–13 May Rapid & Blitz 10 Magnus Carlsen Chinese Chess Championship Xinghua 6–16 May National 12 Wang Yue Sharjah Masters Sharjah 13–23 May 88 Bardiya Daneshvar Polish Chess Championship Rzeszów 21–31 May National 10 Radosław Wojtaszek Budapesti Tavaszi Fesztivál Budapest 23–31 May 210 Yahli Sokolovsky Americas Continental Championship Medellín 24 May2 June ContinentalFIDE 387 Roberto García Pantoja Dubai Open Dubai 25 May2 June 71 Mahammad Muradli Vladimir Dvorkovich Memorial Aktobe 25 May2 June 90 Parham Maghsoodloo National Open Las Vegas 5–9 June 136 Vasif Durarbayli UzChess Cup Masters Tashkent 6–14 June 10 Nodirbek Yakubboev UzChess Cup Challengers Tashkent 6–14 June 10 Shamsiddin Vokhidov Stepan Avagyan Memorial Jermuk 9–18 June 10 Arjun Erigaisi Teplice Open Teplice 15–23 June 240 2629 Max Warmerdam Serbian Chess Championship Senta 17–25 June National 10 Aleksandar Inđić Arona International Chess Festival Arona, Tenerife 22–30 June 161 Xue Haowen GCT Romania Bucharest 24 June6 July 10 Fabiano Caruana Baku Open Baku 29 June7 July 126 2625 Sina Movahed Dutch Chess Championship Utrecht 6–13 July National 16 Max Warmerdam GCT Croatia Rapid & Blitz Zagreb 8–15 July Rapid & Blitz 10 2753 Fabiano Caruana Biel Chess Festival Biel/Bienne 13–26 July 128 Rinat Jumabayev DOLE Open/NEXTLANE Grand Prix Aix-en-Provence 20–28 July 177 Pranesh M GCT St. Louis Rapid & Blitz St. Louis 10–17 August Rapid & Blitz 10 Alireza Firouzja Internationale Dortmunder Schachtage Dortmund 10–18 August 193 Nico Zwirs Abu Dhabi Masters Abu Dhabi 15–24 August 217 Nodirbek Yakubboev Akiba Rubinstein Chess Festival Polanica-Zdrój 17–25 August 10 Vincent Keymer French Championship Alpe d'Huez 17–25 August National 16 Jules Moussard Indian Chess Championship Gurgaon 17–27 August National 341 Karthik Venkataraman Russian Championship Barnaul 17–28 August National 12 Vladislav Artemiev Sinquefield Cup St. Louis 19–29 August 10 Alireza Firouzja Iberoamerican Championship Linares 24 September2 October 118 Alan Pichot Gashimov Memorial Shusha 25–30 September Rapid & Blitz 8 Ian Nepomniachtchi US Championship St. Louis 11–23 October National 12 Fabiano Caruana Pavlodar Open Masters Pavlodar 12–22 October 96 Aram Hakobyan WR Chess Masters Cup London 14–17 October 16 2754 Arjun Erigaisi Chennai Grand Masters Chennai 5–11 November 8 Aravindh Chithambaram European Chess Championship Petrovac 7–20 November ContinentalFIDE 388 Aleksandar Inđić Tata Steel Chess India Rapid Kolkata 13–15 November Rapid 10 2757 Magnus Carlsen Tata Steel Chess India Blitz Kolkata 16–17 November Blitz 10 2757 Magnus Carlsen International President Cup Tashkent 21–29 November 120 Nihal Sarin World Chess Championship Singapore 25 November13 December FIDE 2 2757 Gukesh Dommaraju U.S. Masters Charlotte 27 November1 December 264 Fabiano Caruana Singapore International Open Singapore 29 November5 December 285 Lu Shanglei London Chess Classic London 29 November6 December 8 Gawain Jones London Chess Classic – Open London 29 November7 December 87 2560 Raunak Sadhwani Ilya Smirin Saint Louis Masters St. Louis 3–7 December 59 Fabiano Caruana Alexander Donchenko Qatar Masters Doha 3–12 December 138 Andrey Esipenko European Rapid Championship Skopje 7–8 December RapidContinentalFIDE 398 Vladimir Fedoseev European Blitz Championship Skopje 9 December BlitzContinentalFIDE 368 Jorden van Foreest World Rapid Championship New York 26–28 December RapidFIDE 180 Volodar Murzin World Blitz Championship New York 30–31 December BlitzFIDE 188 Magnus Carlsen Ian Nepomniachtchi
Ranking At the end of 2024, the best player in the Circuit qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2026, provided that his final score consisted of at least 5 tournaments (including at least 4 in standard time controls) and he played in at least 2 standard tournaments with over 50 participating players (if his final score consisted of 6 or 7 tournaments) or at least 1 standard tournament with over 50 participating players (if his final score consisted of 5 tournaments). Tournament results which could not be counted for qualification to the Candidates Tournament 2026 are marked in pink. "(M)" denotes the Masters section of tournaments while "(Ch)" – Challenger section. : Player qualified for Candidates Tournament 2026 via this path. : Current World Champion – ineligible for Candidates Tournament 2026 qualification : Player ineligible for Candidates Tournament 2026 qualification