Total Chess World Championship pilot to be held in Budapest from November 10-20
The inaugural Total Chess World Championship pilot, featuring 24 elite players led by five-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen, will be held from November 10 to 20 at the Anantara New York Palace Hotel in Budapest, Hungary. Developed by the team behind Norway Chess and approved by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), the event combines Fast Classic, Rapid and Blitz time controls in a single competition.
Organisers created the Total Chess format to identify the most complete player by assessing adaptability across different time controls rather than rewarding excellence in one discipline. The Budapest event is a pilot edition intended to test format and regulations ahead of a full championship tour; the complete tour is scheduled to begin in March 2027. The full tour is planned to include four major tournaments across different cities, with the first three events each featuring 24 players and the four highest-scoring competitors qualifying for a Grand Final.
The Budapest pilot begins with a nine-round Blitz Swiss tournament whose results will be used as a tiebreaker before the group stage. The 24 players are split into four groups of six for a double round-robin group stage played over five days, with each player contesting ten Fast Classic games. Fast Classic games will use a time control of 45 minutes per player with a 30-second increment after every move, and the scoring for Fast Classic matches awards three points for a win, one point for a draw and zero for a loss.
Following the group stage, players will be placed into knockout brackets according to their finishing positions and will contest knockout matches over two days that combine all three formats. The competition’s scoring system gives greater weight to longer formats during knockouts, and if a knockout match remains tied an Armageddon game will decide the winner.
The full entry list for the pilot comprises Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Vincent Keymer, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Alireza Firouzja, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Liem Le, Richard Rapport, Levon Aronian, Hans Niemann, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jorden van Foreest, Haik Martirosyan, Vladislav Artemiev, Abhimanyu Mishra, Andrew Hong, Bibisara Assaubayeva and Vaishali Rameshbabu.
India is represented by three players: R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and Vaishali Rameshbabu, with the coverage noting Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi as bringing strong performances across different formats. The mixed field also includes women’s world-class players Bibisara Assaubayeva and Vaishali Rameshbabu.
The organisers announced an annual prize fund for the full tour of at least US$2.7 million, comprising a minimum of US$650,000 for each of the first three events and US$450,000 for the Grand Final. The Budapest pilot will not crown the first overall FIDE World Combined Champion but will serve as a trial to evaluate the format ahead of the full championship season.
The pilot runs from November 10–20 at the Anantara New York Palace Hotel in Budapest; organisers will use its results and feedback to refine regulations ahead of the planned full Total Chess World Championship tour beginning in March 2027.
