2025 FIDE Circuit


The 2025 FIDE Circuit was a system comprising the top chess tournaments in 2025, 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. R Praggnanandhaa scored the most points, and as winner of the 2025 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:
  1. Finish between 1 January 2025 and 15 December 2025. For National Championships, zonal and continental tournaments as well as open tournaments with 50 or more players, 1 January 2025 through 21 December 2025.
  2. Has at least 8 players.
  3. Has at least 7 rounds.
  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.
  5. Players represent at least 3 national federations.
  6. Not more than 50% of the 20 highest-rated players represent one federation.
The Circuit also included the following tournaments:

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
  • * 2.0 - FIDE World Championship 2024
  • * 1.0 - Standard classical tournaments with at most 1 'multi game-day', a day on which multiple games are played
  • * 0.9 - Double Round Robin Tournaments with 6-7 players and classical tournaments with 2 multi game-days
  • * 0.8 - World Rapid Championship, Knockout Tournaments with fewer than 6 rounds and classical tournaments with 3 multi game-days
  • * 0.7 - Standard classical tournaments with 4 multi game-days
  • * 0.6 - World Blitz Championship, other Rapid tournaments, and classical tournaments with 5 multi game-days
  • * 0.5 - Mixed Rapid & Blitz tournaments and standard classical tournaments with 6 or more multi game-days
  • * 0.4 - Other blitz tournaments
If multiple weighting coefficients apply these are multiplied together.

Basic points

Basic points for a tournament were awarded depending on the tournament format:
  • Swiss-system: Top 8, ties included.
  • Double round-robins 6-7 players: Top 2 with ties.
  • Round-robins 8-10 players: Top 3 with ties.
  • Round-robins 11-13 players: Top 4 with ties.
  • Round-robins 14 players: Top 5 with ties.
  • Knockout: Third round or later, up to 8 players.
Points were awarded as follows:
1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th
11/108765432

  • 11 points for an outright winner with no tie-break criteria applied. Otherwise, 10 basic points will 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 shared equally among all tied players.

World Championship 2024

For the World Championship 2024, runner-up Ding Liren received points in the 2025 Circuit equal to the basic points for 2nd place multiplied by the k-factor and multiplied by 2. The TPR for this event was calculated as the player's performance rating.

World Cup 2025

For the World Cup 2025, the event points were equal to the normal number of event points plus the difference between the number of games won and lost. Anyone who was eliminated in the quarter finals of the event was deemed to have finished in 5th place for basic points, and as such all gained 5 basic points.

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 allowed
1–541
642
752

  • If 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 can be counted.
  • * No more than 2 rapid/blitz tournaments can be counted.
  • If player had 5 tournaments or less:
  • * No more than 4 standard 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 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 with TAR below 2650.

Tournaments

"" denotes the Masters section while "" denotes the Challengers section.
"Open" refers to classical tournaments with 50 or more participants.
TournamentLocationDateTypeTARWinner
World Championship

Ranking

At the end of 2025, the best player in the Circuit qualified the Candidates Tournament 2026, provided that they played in at least 5 tournaments and he played at least 2 standard tournaments with participations of more than 50 players or at least 1 standard tournament with participations of more than 50 players.
Tournament results which can't be counted for qualification for the Candidates Tournament 2026 are marked in pink.
"" denotes the Masters section of tournaments while "" denotes the Challengers section.
No.PlayerPointsEvents12345678
1