Carlsen heads the field as Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot begins

Magnus Carlsen is in Budapest this week for a new tournament in which knockout-round action will take the players from blitz to rapid to a shortened form of classical chess in a single day. The world No. 1 heads a 24-player field at the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot, which carries a prize fund of $650,000.

R. Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and R. Vaishali are the three Indians in the field. For Vaishali, the event comes between her victory at the Women’s Candidates in April and her World title match against Ju Wenjun. She and Kazakhstan’s Bibisara Assaubayeva are the two women in a field that also includes Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Hungary’s Richard Rapport.

Tuesday’s opening programme featured nine rounds of blitz, with the standings used to break ties in the group stage. From Wednesday, the players will compete in four groups of six, facing each opponent in their group twice over five days.

Each game will be played at the Fast Classic time control, with 45 minutes per player and 30 seconds added after every move. A win earns three points and a draw one. Only the four group winners will contest for the title.

The rest will play for the lower places. Each knockout match runs over two days, with four blitz games, two rapid games and one Fast Classic game each day. Wins carry more weight at longer time controls, so an early lead in blitz can disappear in the evening.

An Armageddon game will settle any match still tied. The pilot runs at the Anantara New York Palace Hotel until November 20. The full tour is due to begin in 2027, with the top four in the standings qualifying for the Grand Final to play for the FIDE World Combined Championship.

(The writer is in Budapest at the invitation of Total Chess)