FIDE Grand Prix 2012–13
The FIDE Grand Prix 2012–13 was a series of six chess tournaments that formed part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship 2014. Veselin Topalov finished first, and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov second in the overall standings. Both therefore qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2014.
Format
Eighteen top players were selected to compete in the Grand Prix. Each player participated in four of the tournaments.Each tournament was a 12-player, single round-robin tournament. This was a change to the 14 player tournaments last cycle. In each round players scored 1 point for a win, ½ point for a draw and 0 for a loss. Grand Prix points were then allocated according to each player's standing in the tournament: 170 Grand Prix points for first place, 140 for second place, 110 for third place, and then 90 down to 10 points by steps of 10. In case of a tie in points the Grand Prix points were shared evenly by the tied players.
Only the three best tournament results of each player were counted. The player with the most Grand Prix points was the winner.
Players and qualification
The three highest ranked players on the FIDE rating list chose not to enter the Grand Prix. They were world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, 2008–2010 Grand Prix winner Levon Aronian and ex-world champion Vladimir Kramnik. World Champion Viswanathan Anand also declined participation. There were several ways to qualify for the Grand Prix series:| Player | Country | Qualifying method |
| Boris Gelfand | World Chess Championship 2012 | |
| Peter Svidler | Chess World Cup 2011 | |
| Alexander Grischuk | Chess World Cup 2011 | |
| Vassily Ivanchuk | Chess World Cup 2011 | |
| Ruslan Ponomariov | Chess World Cup 2011 | |
| Teimour Radjabov | FIDE rating list | |
| Sergey Karjakin | FIDE rating list | |
| Hikaru Nakamura | FIDE rating list | |
| Veselin Topalov | FIDE rating list | |
| Shakhriyar Mamedyarov | FIDE rating list | |
| Vugar Gashimov | FIDE rating list | |
| Fabiano Caruana | FIDE President nominee | |
| Alexander Morozevich | AGON nominees | |
| Wang Hao | AGON nominees | |
| Peter Leko | AGON nominees | |
| Leinier Domínguez | AGON nominees | |
| Anish Giri | AGON nominees | |
| Rustam Kasimdzhanov | AGON nominees | |
| Michael Adams | Replacements by rating | |
| Gata Kamsky | Replacements by rating | |
| Étienne Bacrot | Replacements by rating | |
| Wang Yue | Replacements by rating | |
| Evgeny Tomashevsky | Replacements by rating | |
| Laurent Fressinet | Replacements by rating |
Prize money and Grand Prix points
The prize money was €170,000 per single Grand Prix and €420,000 for the overall Grand Prix finishes.| Place | Single Grand Prix event | Overall standings | Grand Prix points |
| 1 | €25,000 | €100,000 | 170 |
| 2 | €22,500 | €80,000 | 140 |
| 3 | €20,000 | €60,000 | 110 |
| 4 | €17,500 | €50,000 | 90 |
| 5 | €15,000 | €40,000 | 80 |
| 6 | €13,000 | €30,000 | 70 |
| 7 | €12,000 | €25,000 | 60 |
| 8 | €11,000 | €20,000 | 50 |
| 9 | €10,000 | €15,000 | 40 |
| 10 | €9,000 | – | 30 |
| 11 | €8,000 | – | 20 |
| 12 | €7,000 | – | 10 |
Tie breaks
With the objective of determining qualifiers to play in the Candidates Tournament 2014, and in the case that two or more players had equal cumulative points at the top, the following criteria were utilized to decide the overall Series winner and other overall placings:- Ranking points of the fourth result not already taken in the top three ranking results.
- Number of actual game result points scored in the best three tournaments.
- Game points of the fourth result not already taken in the top three results.
- Number of wins.
- Drawing of lots.
Schedule
The six tournaments were:| No. | Host city | Date | Winners | Points | ||||||||||||
| 1 | London, England | 21 September – 3 October 2012 |  Veselin Topalov.png" />Veselin Topalov|BULGrand Prix standingsGrand Prix points in bold indicate a tournament win. A number in brackets is a player's worst result of four and doesn't add to the total.Veselin Topalov finished first, and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was second in the overall standings. Thus, they qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2014. Karjakin and Svidler qualified for the Candidates by other paths, so are shown in light green.
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