Sixteen players have secured invitations to the 2026 Total Chess World Championship Tour Pilot on January 6. The field includes reigning World Champions, medalists from the 2025 World Rapid and Blitz Championships, and top-rated players.

World Champions:

  1. 🇮🇳 GM Gukesh Dommaraju – World Champion
  2. 🇨🇳 GM Ju Wenjun – Women’s World Champion

World Rapid Championship 2025:

  1. 🇳🇴 GM Magnus Carlsen – 1st place
  2. 🇷🇺 GM Vladislav Artemiev – 2nd place
  3. 🇮🇳 GM Arjun Erigaisi – 3rd place

World Blitz Championship 2025:

  1. 🇺🇿 GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov – 2nd place
  2. 🇫🇷 GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave – 5th place

FIDE rating:

  1. 🇺🇸 GM Hikaru Nakamura – No. 2
  2. 🇺🇸 GM Fabiano Caruana – No. 3
  3. 🇩🇪 GM Vincent Keymer – No. 4
  4. 🇳🇱 GM Anish Giri – No. 6
  5. 🇫🇷 GM Alireza Firouzja – No. 7
  6. 🇮🇳 GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa – No. 8
  7. 🇨🇳 GM Wei Yi – No. 10
  8. 🇺🇸 GM Wesley So – No. 11 (replacement)
  9. 🇮🇳 GM Viswanathan Anand – No. 13 (replacement)

The Total Chess World Championship Tour is a new series created by Norway Chess and approved by FIDE combining Fast Classic (45+30), Rapid (15+10), and Blitz (3+2) disciplines. The Tour aims to crown a unified World Combined Champion across all time controls. The 2026 pilot tournament will take place from 3–15 October 2026. The first full Total Chess World Championship Tour season will launch in 2027.

Credit: Norway Chess