The 2024 FIDE Circuit is a system comprising the top chess tournaments in 2024, which serves as a qualification path for the Candidates Tournament 2026. Players receive points based on their performance and the strength of the tournament. A player's final Circuit score is the sum of their seven best results of the year. The winner of the Circuit qualifies for the Candidates Tournament 2026.^[1]

Tournament eligibility

A FIDE-rated individual standard tournament is eligible for the Circuit if it meets the following criteria:^[1]

1. Finish between 1 January 2024 and 15 December 2024.
2. Has at least 8 players.
3. Has at least 7 rounds (4 rounds for knockout events).
4. The 8 highest-rated players have an average standard rating of at least 2550 at the start of tournament. This average is referred to as TAR (tournament average rating).
5. Players represent at least 3 national federations.
6. Not more than 50% of the 20 highest-rated players (or all players if fewer than 20) represent one federation.

The Circuit also includes the following tournaments:

• The World Chess Championship 2024.
• National Championships that meet points 1 to 4 in above criteria.
• World Rapid Championship.
• World Blitz Championship.
• Continental Rapid Championships.
• Continental Blitz Championships.
• Other Rapid and Blitz tournaments that meet the above criteria, except that the TAR must be at least 2700.

Points system

Event points

Circuit points obtained by a player from a tournament are calculated as follows:

${\displaystyle P=B\times k\times w}$

where:

• ${\displaystyle P}$ - Points obtained by player from the tournament
• ${\displaystyle B}$ - Basic points
• ${\displaystyle k}$ - Tournament strength factor, calculated as ${\displaystyle k=(TAR-2500)/100}$
• ${\displaystyle w}$ - Tournament weighting
  • 1.0 - Standard classical tournaments
  • 0.8 - World Rapid Championships
  • 0.6 - World Blitz Championships and other Rapid tournaments
  • 0.5 - Mixed Rapid & Blitz tournaments
  • 0.4 - Blitz tournaments

Basic points

Basic points for a tournament are awarded depending on the tournament format:

• Swiss-system: Top 8 (within top half of ranking), ties included.
• Round-robin: Top 3 with ties (with the exception of the Candidates Tournament 2024 where points are awarded to all players).
• Knockout: Third round or later, up to 8 players.

Points are awarded as follows:

• If the tournament is won outright, basic points for 1st place would be 11 points. Otherwise, 10 basic points would be used for calculation.
• For tied positions, basic points are calculated as 50% of points for final ranking as determined by tournament's tie-break rules, plus 50% of the sum of basic points assigned for the tied places divided by the number of tied players. If no tie-break rule is applied, basic points are 100% shared equally among all tied players.
• For round-robin tournaments (other than Candidates), 4th and below are worth zero points for tied players calculation.

FIDE World Championship points

For World Chess Championship 2024, the winner will get points calculated as 1st place basic points multipled by the strength factor, but with its TAR value using winner's performance rating instead.

Player's total and ranking

A player's point total for the ranking is the sum of their best 7 tournaments with the following criteria:

• If player has 6 or more tournaments counted:
  • No more than 5 tournaments with participation of less than 50 players can be counted.
  • No more than 2 rapid/blitz tournaments can be counted.
• If player has 5 tournaments or less:
  • No more than 4 tournaments with participation of less than 50 players can be counted.
  • No more than 1 rapid/blitz tournament can be counted.

Tournaments that could be included in player's results are as follows:

• Official FIDE tournaments.
• National Championships.
• Other eligible tournaments, counting all tournaments with minimum TAR of 2650 and up to two lower tournaments per host country.

Tournaments

Eligible tournaments as of 26 March 2024.^[2]

2024 FIDE Circuit – Eligible Tournaments

Tournament	Location	Date	Type	P#	TAR	Winner
Hastings Masters	Hastings	28 December 2023 – 5 January 2024		105	2552	Abhijeet Gupta
Tata Steel Masters	Wijk aan Zee	12–28 January		14	2752+3⁄4	Wei Yi
Tata Steel Challengers	Wijk aan Zee	12–28 January		14	2637+3⁄4	Leon Luke Mendonca
Djerba Masters	Djerba	18–25 February		8	2590+1⁄2	Daniel Dardha
Prague Masters	Prague	27 February – 7 March		10	2727+1⁄4	Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Prague Challengers	Prague	27 February – 7 March		10	2575+3⁄4	Ediz Gurel
Prague Open	Prague	27 February – 7 March		267	2567+3⁄4	Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis
Shenzhen Masters	Shenzhen	29 February – 7 March		8	2698	Bu Xiangzhi
Aeroflot Open	Moscow	3-7 March		142	2679+7⁄8	Amin Tabatabaei
Cappelle-la-Grande Open	Cappelle-la-Grande	2–8 March		382	2562+5⁄8	Abhimanyu Puranik
Reykjavik Open	Reykjavík	15–21 March		363	2602+3⁄4	Bogdan-Daniel Deac
Fagernes Chess International	Fagernes	24–31 March		100	2568	Rinat Jumabayev
Torneo International de Ajedrez de Roda	La Roda	27–31 March		210	2603+7⁄8	Aravindh Chithambaram
Grenke Open	Karlsruhe	March 26 – April 1		935	2689+1⁄4	Hans Niemann
Open Internacional de Ajedrez Semana Santa	Alicante	March 27 – April 1		417	2574+1⁄2	Kirill Alekseenko
Menorca Open	Menorca	April 2–7		284	2676+5⁄8	Arjun Erigaisi
Candidates	Toronto	April 3–22	FIDE	8	2744+7⁄8
Sunway Formentera Chess Festival	Formentera	April 9–19
Spring Chess Classic	St. Louis	April 11–20
TePe Sigeman	Malmö	April 27 – May 3
GCT Superbet Poland Rapid & Blitz	Warsaw	May 6–13	Rapid & Blitz
Chess Grand Prix	Linz	May 9–12	Rapid
Cherry Blossom Classic	Dulles	May 22–27
Chess Festival Munich	Munich	May 19 – June 2
Norway Chess	Stavanger	May 27 – June 7		6
Vladimir Dvorkovich Memorial	Aktobe
National Open	Las Vegas	June 5–9
Stepan Avagyan Memorial	Jermuk	June 9–18
Teplice Open	Teplice	June 15–23
GCT Romania	Bucharest	June 24 – July 6		10
GCT Croatia	Zagreb	July 8–15	Rapid & Blitz
Biel Chess Festival	Biel/Bienne	July 13–26
GCT St. Louis Rapid and Blitz	St. Louis	August 10–17	Rapid & Blitz
Internationale Dortmunder Schachtage	Dortmund	August 10–18
Sinquefield Cup	St. Louis	August 17–31		10
Abu Dhabi Masters	Abu Dhabi

Ranking

At the end of 2024, the best player in the Circuit will qualify for the 2026 Candidates Tournament, provided that he have played 5 eligible tournaments, including at least 4 in standard time controls.

Top 20 as of 7 April 2024^[2]

No.	Player	Points	1	2	3	4	5
1	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	39.22	Tata Steel Masters T 2nd-4th – 14.22	Prague Masters 1st – 25.00
2	Arjun Erigaisi	38.36	Shenzhen Masters 3rd – 15.18	Grenke Open 6th – 6.99	Menorca Open 1st – 16.19
3	Hans Niemann	28.51	Djerba 2nd – 7.69	Grenke Open 1st – 20.82
4	Maksim Chigaev	21.95	Grenke Open 5th – 8.41	Menorca Open 3rd – 13.54
5	Daniel Dardha	20.82	Tata Steel Challengers T 2nd-3rd – 10.33	Djerba 1st – 8.60	Menorca Open 8th – 1.89
6	Wei Yi	20.54	Tata Steel Masters 1st – 20.54
7	Amin Tabatabaei	19.79	Aeroflot Open 1st – 19.79
8	Vladimir Fedoseev	19.57	Grenke Open 3rd – 10.30	Menorca Open 4th – 9.27
9	Bu Xiangzhi	18.15	Shenzhen Masters 1st – 18.15
10	Yu Yangyi	16.17	Shenzhen Masters 2nd – 16.17
11	Leon Luke Mendonca	15.15	Tata Steel Challengers 1st – 15.15
12	Kirill Alekseenko	14.42	Menorca Open 2nd – 14.42
13	Gukesh D	14.22	Tata Steel Masters T 2nd-4th – 14.22
13	Anish Giri	14.22	Tata Steel Masters T 2nd-4th – 14.22
15	Marc'Andria Maurizzi	13.50	Tata Steel Challengers T 2nd-3rd – 10.33	Djerba T 3rd-4th – 3.17
16	Andrey Esipenko	13.04	Aeroflot Open 2nd – 13.04
17	Nodirbek Yakubboev	12.14	Aeroflot Open 3rd – 12.14
18	Abhimanyu Puranik	11.73	Cappelle-la-Grande Open 1st – 5.95	Fagernes 2nd – 5.78
19	R Praggnanandhaa	11.36	Prague Masters T 2nd-4th – 11.36
19	Parham Maghsoodloo	11.36	Prague Masters T 2nd-4th – 11.36
19	Thai Dai Van Nguyen	11.36	Prague Masters T 2nd-4th – 11.36