The 2025 FIDE Circuit is a system comprising the top chess tournaments in 2025, 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.
Tournament eligibility.
A FIDE-rated individual standard tournament is eligible for the Circuit if it meets the following criteria:
The Circuit also includes the following tournaments:
Points system.
Event points.
Circuit points obtained by a player from a tournament are calculated as follows:
formula_1
where:
If multiple weighting coefficients apply these are multiplied together.
Basic points.
Basic points for a tournament are awarded depending on the tournament format:
Points are awarded as follows:
World Championship 2024.
For the World Championship 2024, runner-up Ding Liren received points in the 2025 Circuit equal to the basic points for 2nd place multiplied by the k-factor and multiplied by 2. The TPR for this event was calculated as the player's performance rating.
World Cup 2025.
For the World Cup 2025, the event points will be equal to the normal number of event points plus the difference between the number of games won and lost (if positive, not more than 2). Anyone who is eliminated in the quarter finals of the event will be deemed to have finished in 5th points for basic points, and as such will all gain 5 basic points.
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:
Tournaments that could be included in player's results are as follows:
Tournaments.
"(M)" denotes the Masters section while "(Ch)" denotes the Challengers section.<br>
"Open" refers to classical tournaments with 50 or more participants.
Ranking.
At the end of 2025, the best player in the Circuit will qualify for the Candidates Tournament 2026, provided that they played in at least 5 tournaments (including at least 4 in standard time controls). Among these tournaments, there shall be at least 2 standard tournaments with participations of more than 50 players (if they played in 6 or 7 tournaments) or at least 1 standard tournament with participations of more than 50 players (if they played in 5 tournaments).
Tournament results which can't be counted for qualification for the Candidates Tournament 2026 are marked in pink.
"(M)" denotes the Masters section of tournaments while "(Ch)" denotes the Challengers section.