Total Chess World Championship Tour
Series of chess tournaments from 2026
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The Total Chess World Championship Tour, organized by Norway Chess and approved by FIDE, is an annual series of chess tournaments among top players combining the most popular time controls – fast classical, rapid, and blitz. It is foreseen that each year three tournaments will be played and the players with the best combined score will qualify for the Grand Final to determine the FIDE World Combined Champion.
The first event, the Total Chess World Championship 2026, will be a pilot event played in a single leg while the tour, in true sense, will start from 2027.[1]
Qualified players
The following players, qualified from the path mentioned against them, are qualified (or will qualify) for the pilot event.
| Seed | Path/Title | Player | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reigning World Chess Champion |  Gukesh Dommaraju[3] | |
| 2 | Reigning Women's World Chess Champion |  Ju Wenjun[4] | |
| 3 | All the 3 medalists of World Rapid Championship 2025 | Gold |  Magnus Carlsen[5] |
| 4 | Silver |  Vladislav Artemiev[6] | |
| 5 | Bronze | Arjun Erigaisi[7] | |
| (3) | Both finalists of World Blitz Championship 2025 | Gold | Magnus Carlsen[5] |
| 6 | Silver |  Nodirbek Abdusattorov | |
| 7 | Replacement for
Magnus Carlsen |
 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | |
| (3) | Top 9 Players in Classical FIDE Rating list
(as on January 1, 2026) |
Magnus Carlsen[5] | |
| 8 | #2 |  | |
| 9 | #3 | | |
| 10 | #4 |  | |
| (5) | | ||
| 11 | #6 |  | |
| 12 | #7 | Alireza Firouzja | |
| 13 | #8 | R. Praggnanandhaa | |
| (1) | | ||
| 14 | Replacement for
Magnus Carlsen |
| |
| 15 | Replacement (#10) | | |
| 16 | Replacement (#13) | Viswanathan Anand | |
| 17 | Winner of Candidates Tournament 2026
(or World Champion Challenger) |
To be declared on | 15/16 April 2026 |
| 18 | Winner of Women's Candidates Tournament 2026
(or Women's World Champion Challenger) | ||
| 19 | Top 3 Players in Classical FIDE Rating list
(as on June 1, 2026) |
June 1, 2026 | |
| 20 | |||
| 21 | |||
| 22 | FIDE Circuit 2026
(with special rankings, including only open tournaments) |
To be announced | |
| 23 | |||
| 24 | |||