Total Chess World Championship Tour: 6 more stars to play in Budapest
Total Chess World Championship Tour Announces Six More Stars for Pilot Event in Budapest
The chess world continues to experiment with new competition formats. In November 2026, Budapest will host the pilot event of the Total Chess World Championship Tour, a project that brings together three disciplines: fast classical chess, rapid, and blitz.
On September 23, organizers announced the final six players, completing the 24-player field for the pilot tournament. The previously announced stars will now be joined by Levon Aronian, Lê Quang Liêm, Jorden van Foreest, Abhimanyu Mishra, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Andrew Hong.
Six New Names
The final group of six significantly strengthens the tournament field and adds players with very different backgrounds and playing styles.
Levon Aronian is one of the most prominent grandmasters of his generation. The Armenian-born American player spent many years among the world's elite and has extensive experience competing at the highest level.
Lê Quang Liêm represents Vietnam and has also long been recognized as a world-class player. His participation is particularly interesting in a format that requires players to switch quickly between different time controls.
Jorden van Foreest is a Dutch grandmaster well known to fans of elite European tournaments.
Abhimanyu Mishra represents the new generation of chess players. As of September 2026, he is ranked 96th in the world and remains the youngest grandmaster in chess history.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov is one of the most experienced players in the final field. The Azerbaijani grandmaster is ranked 22nd in the FIDE world rankings as of September 2026.
Completing the new group is Andrew Hong of the United States, who was ranked 152nd in the world at the time the field was announced.
The organizers have therefore assembled a combination of experience, youth, and players representing different chess schools and traditions.
24 Strong Players Will Compete in Budapest
With the final participants announced, the field for the pilot tournament is now complete.
The headline name remains Magnus Carlsen, who occupies the top spot in the FIDE world rankings. The field also includes Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Vincent Keymer, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Alireza Firouzja, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Richard Rapport, Hans Niemann, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
Two representatives of women's chess will also compete — Bibisara Assaubayeva and Vaishali Rameshbabu.
The field therefore brings together current rating leaders, experienced world championship contenders, young talents, and players with extensive experience in faster formats.
Three Formats in One Championship
The defining feature of Total Chess is not simply its impressive lineup, but the structure of the competition itself.
The project, developed by Norway Chess and approved by FIDE, is designed to determine the FIDE World Combined Champion — a champion who proves their strength across all three formats.
The tournament will feature:
* Fast Classic — 45 minutes plus 30 seconds per move;
* Rapid — 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move;
* Blitz — 3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move.
The combination of these three time controls is intended to make the competition fundamentally different from conventional tournaments.
A player cannot rely exclusively on their strengths in classical or fast chess. The format requires the ability to adapt to radically different playing speeds and strategic demands.
How the Pilot Tournament Will Work
In Budapest, the 24 participants will be divided into four groups of six players. The group stage will use a double round-robin format.
Each player will contest ten Fast Classic games. A win will be worth three points, while a draw will earn one point. Before the main stage, a nine-round blitz tournament will also be held and used to determine positions in the event of tied scores.
The group stage will be followed by the playoffs.
This is where Total Chess becomes particularly unusual: each playoff match will be played over two days and will feature all three disciplines — four blitz games, two rapid games, and one Fast Classic game.
The disciplines will carry different weights in the final scoring. If a match ends level, the winner will be decided by an Armageddon game.
Why Budapest Matters to the Project
The pilot tournament will take place from November 10 to 20, 2026, at the renowned Anantara New York Palace Budapest.
Budapest is a fitting location for the experiment. The Hungarian capital has deep chess traditions and has already hosted major international competitions, including the 2024 Chess Olympiad.
Now the city will serve as a kind of laboratory for a new format of professional chess.
The organizers will be able to test not only the sporting concept, but also how effectively spectators can follow a tournament in which the time control, strategic demands, and requirements placed on players constantly change.
What Comes After the Pilot?
The Budapest tournament is not intended to be the final destination for Total Chess. It is designed as the first practical test ahead of a full global tour planned for 2027.
The future Total Chess World Championship Tour is expected to visit several cities around the world and bring leading players together for a series of events. At the end of the tour, the top four players will qualify for the Grand Final, where the first FIDE World Combined Champion will be crowned.
In essence, the organizers are attempting to create a new type of championship — one determined not solely by strength in a single discipline, but by a player's versatility across multiple forms of chess.
A New Experiment Begins in Budapest
The addition of Aronian, Lê Quang Liêm, van Foreest, Mishra, Mamedyarov, and Hong completes the 24-player field. The question now is no longer who will participate, but how effectively the new system will work in practice.
Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Arjun Erigaisi, Levon Aronian, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and emerging talents such as Abhimanyu Mishra will all meet in the same competition. But the outcome of their matches will not be decided in one familiar discipline. Instead, they will have to perform across three different formats.
The first official test of Total Chess will begin in Budapest on November 10. Its results will show how viable the idea of combining classical chess, rapid, and blitz into a single championship really is. In 2027, the next stage will reveal whether this experiment can develop into a fully fledged international chess tour.