What is the FIDE Circuit?

The FIDE Circuit is a new pathway for chess players to earn themselves a spot in the Candidates Tournament, the prestigious invitational that determines who will be the next challenger of the reigning world chess champion. It tracks all the biggest notable chess tournaments in the world and awards players points based on their five highest scores in eligible events.

But what exactly is the FIDE Circuit? What does it encompass, and how does it work?

The FIDE Circuit, explained

For the 2023-2024 world chess championship cycle, The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, better known as FIDE, introduced a new pathway to qualify for the Candidates Tournament called the FIDE Circuit. It is a collection of high-level international tournaments, where the players’ seven best results are tallied via a complicated points system. For an event to qualify for FIDE Circuit points in 2024, it needs to meet the following criteria:

• Finish between Jan. 1 and Dec. 15 in the calendar year
• Feature at least eight players and seven rounds of competition (except knockout events, which need a minimum of four rounds).
• The eight highest-rated players at the event have an average standard rating of 2,550 at the start of the tournament (TAR).
• The Chief Arbiter is an International Arbiter.
• Recommended FPL Fair Play procedures are applied.
• Players represent at least three national federations, and
• Not more than 50 percent of either the 20 highest-rated players or all players, if there are fewer than 20 players, shall represent one federation.

The last two criteria don’t apply to national championships. Furthermore, while the events primarily need to be in the standard (classical) time control, the players’ best result in the following faster events can also be included in the points total calculation:

• World Rapid Championship
• World Blitz Championship
• Continental Rapid and Blitz Championships
• Other Rapid and Blitz tournaments (and national championships) that meet the above criteria and have an average standard rating of top eight players 2,700 or higher.

As a standalone event, the 2024 World Chess Championship also counts for circuit points. Obviously, the winner won’t feature in the Candidates Tournament, since he’ll be the reigning champion who’s going to be challenged by its winner.

Confused yet? We haven’t even gotten to the calculation algorithm!

I still get surprised sometimes by how bureaucratic the chess world can sometimes be, though I appreciate the difficulties of standardizing a points system across all big international events in the world, and all my grumbling aside, the FIDE Circuit has been one of the least controversial in execution and the best-received in practice when it comes to Candidates qualification paths.

FIDE Circuit points system and calculation

Players’ individual tournament results are converted into circuit points by multiplying the following elements.

• The number of points earned in the tournament itself.
• “Basic points,” awarded based on the player’s placement in the tournament, with first place offering 10 and eighth place offering two.
• The tournament’s strength factor, calculated by subtracting 2,500 from the field’s average rating, then dividing the remainder by 100.
• The weighting of the tournament, based on its format.

For example, Fabiano Caruana’s win at the 2023 US Championship, where he finished with eight points out of 12, earned him 22.68 points.

Further details, listing every exception to every exception, are available in FIDE’s announcement post. The list of eligible tournaments is available on the federation’s dedicated website.

Who will win the FIDE Circuit in 2024?

At the time of writing, Arjun Erigaisi is leading the pack, with Fabiano Caruana, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and Alireza Firouzja in hot pursuit. The list of qualifying events and their performances therein are still subject to change, as they always have the option to play in further events to replace their worst results in the list.

Of course, this is just one pathway to the Candidates.

2026 Candidates Tournament: all qualification paths

Eight players will fight it out in the 2026 Candidates Tournament for a chance to challenge Ding Liren or Gukesh D. For the first time, the loser of the championship match won’t be directly invited to the Candidates. These are the pathways to get there:

• The top three finishers of the 2025 FIDE World Cup
• The top two finishers of the 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament
• The winner of the 2024 and 2025 FIDE Circuit
• The player with the highest rating averaged from August 2025 to January 2026.

The qualification pathways are hierarchical, meaning if you earn yourself a spot through one of the avenues higher up the list, you are automatically exempted from the ones below. This means that the rating spot is superseded by the FIDE Circuit qualification.