Chess World Cup 2023


The Chess World Cup 2023 was a 209-player single-elimination chess tournament that took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 30 July to 24 August 2023. It was the 10th edition of the Chess World Cup. The winner, runner-up and third-place finisher of the tournament earned the right to the play in the 2024 Candidates Tournament. In January 2024, Carlsen withdrew from the Candidates tournament, with the fourth-place finisher from the World Cup qualifying in his place. The tournament was held in parallel with the Women's Chess World Cup 2023.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda was the defending champion. He lost in the fifth round to Fabiano Caruana.

Format

The tournament was an eight-round knockout event, with the top 50 seeds having been given a bye directly into the second round. The losers of the two semi-finals played a match for third place.
The players who finished first, second, and third qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2024, a tournament to decide the challenger for the upcoming World Championship.
Each round consisted of classical time limit games on the first two days, plus tie-breaks on the third day if they were required. The time limits were as follows:
Two classical time limit games: 90 minutes, plus a 30-minute increment on move 40, plus a 30-second increment per move from move 1, per player.
If the match was tied after the classical games, players played two rapid chess games, with 25 minutes plus a 10-second increment per move, per player.
If the match was tied, players played two more rapid chess games, with 10 minutes plus a 10-second increment per move, per player.
If the match was still tied, players played two blitz games, with five minutes plus a three-second increment per move, per player.
If the match was still tied, a single blitz game, with three minutes plus a two-second increment per move, was played to decide the match. A drawing of lots determined which player had white. If the game was drawn, the players switched colors and played again, and this process was repeated until a decisive result was obtained.

Schedule

Each round lasted three days: two for classical time control games and a third, if necessary, for tie-breaks. Rounds 1 to 3 ran from 30 July to 7 August; 8 August was a rest day; Rounds 4 to 6 ran from 9 to 17 August; 18 August was a rest day; and the last two rounds ran from 19 to 24 August.

Prize money

The total prize fund was US$1,834,000, with a first prize of US$110,000.

Participants

The participants are seeded here by their FIDE rating of July 2023. All players are grandmasters unless indicated otherwise.

Qualifier explanation

The following 206 players qualified for the World Cup:
Armenia did not nominate a player, and a third Organizer's nominee was invited instead.
The participants were seeded by their FIDE rating of July 2023.

Replacements

The following are the players from the list of qualifiers who declined to play, and their replacements:
  • , 2780 →, 2732
  • , 2786 →, 2728
  • , 2754 →, 2722
  • , 2775 →, 2709
  • , 2752 →, 2721
  • , 2750 →, 2716
  • , 2742 →, 2716
  • , 2566 →, 2719
  • , 2692 →, 2624
  • , 2685 →, 2614
  • , 2640 →, 2617
  • , 2609 →, IM, 2345
  • , 2598 →, 2550
  • , 2579 →, 2564
  • , IM, 2479 → .

    Rounds 1–4

Pairings were published on the official FIDE website on 4 July.

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Section 9

Section 10

Section 11

Section 12

Section 13

Section 14

Section 15

Section 16

Rounds 5–8

Third place

Finals