World number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway and world champion Gukesh Dommaraju of India will be part of a star-studded line-up which will battle for top hounours at the €1mn FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships Qatar 2025 this week.
The championships will be hosted at the Sports and Events Complex of Qatar University from December 26 to 30.
The Doha edition has attracted some of the world's best players including chess icon Carlsen, current world champion Gukesh - the third youngest player to reach a rating of 2700 and the youngest to reach 2750, Ian Nepomniachtchi, the 2024 World Blitz champion, Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri of the Netherlands, Wesley So and Levon Aronian.
Vincent Keymer, Arjun Erigaisi, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Yagız Kaan Erdoğmuş, Ediz Gurel, Alexander Grischuk and Ukraine's Vasyl Ivanchuk, the 2016 World Rapid Chess Champion in Doha, are also part of the line-up in Qatar.
In the women's competition, five-time world champion Gu Wenjun of China has officially registered for the tournament, which features 130 players.
Also participating are her compatriot an Zhongyi, ranked second in the world with 2507 points, Russia's Aleksandra Goryachkina, Kazakhstan's Bibisara Assaubayeva (ranked fifth), Anna Muzychuk (winner of the 2016 World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in Doha), her sister Maria, and Russia's Kateryna Lagno.
The organizing committee is scheduled to hold a press conference on Thursday at the Rosewood Hotel in Lusail City.
The conference will be headlined by Mohammed al-Mudahka, President of the Qatar Chess Association (QCA) and Vice President of the Arab Chess Association, Arkady Dvorkovich, President of the International Chess
Federation (FIDE), Gukesh and Chinese grandmaster Wenjun.
The total prize money for the tournament is €1mn. FIDE has allocated €700,000 for the Open category – divided equally between the Rapid and Blitz chess tournaments – and €300,000 for the women's category, also divided equally.
FIDE has established a knockout system for the Blitz chess tournament in both the Open and Women's categories, where only the top four players from the preliminary rounds will advance directly to the semi-finals.
Emil Davidovich, CEO of FIDE, said that the new system represents an excellent blend of the Swiss system and the knockout format. The increased number of qualifying rounds ensures that only the strongest players advance to the knockout stage.
As for the World Rapid Championship, the format remains unchanged, consisting of 13 rounds in the Open and 11 rounds in the Women's Championship, with a tiebreaker game in case of a tie for first place.
The tournament will feature Doha last hosted the tournament in 2016, when Ivanchuk won the rapid title and Russian Sergey Karjakin clinched the blitz chess crown.