The FIDE World Cup is a major chess event organized by FIDE , the international governing body. Three different formats have been used:
58-549: Before FIDE introduced the Chess World Cup, the breakaway Grandmasters Association (GMA) organized six tournaments in 1988–1989 which they termed the 'GMA World Cup'. Participants were high-ranking grandmasters ; each round was a large round robin termed a 'Grand Prix'. They were considered the flagship tournaments of the GMA but were abandoned as the association gradually collapsed in the early 1990s. In 2000 and 2002 FIDE ,
116-479: A Category , based on the average rating of the contestants. For instance, it was decided that 'Category 1' status would apply to tournaments with an average Elo rating of participants falling within the range 2251–2275; similarly Category 2 would apply to the range 2276–2300 etc. The higher the tournament Category, the stronger the tournament. Another vital component involved the setting of meritorious norms for each Category of tournament. Players must meet or surpass
174-541: A GM or IM does not count for the purposes of this requirement if he had not had a GM or IM result in the five years prior to the tournament. In addition, no more than 50 percent plus one of the players can be from the same country for tournaments of 10 to 12 players, or no more than 50 percent plus two for larger tournaments. Seventy-four GM titles were awarded in 1951 through 1968. During that period, ten GM titles were awarded in 1965, but only one in 1966 and in 1968. The modern system for awarding FIDE titles evolved from
232-637: A different event of the same name has been part of the World Chess Championship cycle. This event is being held every two years. It is a 128-player knockout tournament, in the same style as the Tilburg tournament between 1992 and 1994, or the 1998 , 1999 , 2000 , 2002 and 2004 FIDE World Championships . The event was held in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011 in Khanty-Mansiysk, and subsequently FIDE has given preference to bids for
290-420: A draw may be settled in extra time and eventually by a penalty shootout or by replaying the fixture. Another perceived disadvantage is that most competitors are eliminated after relatively few games. Variations such as the double-elimination tournament allow competitors a single loss while remaining eligible for overall victory. However, losing one game requires the competitor to win more games in order to win
348-456: A match between the losers of the semifinal matches called third place playoffs , the winner therein placing third and the loser fourth. Many Olympic single-elimination tournaments feature the bronze medal match if they do not award bronze medals to both losing semifinalists. The FIFA World Cup has long featured the third place match (since 1934 ), though the UEFA Euro has not held one since
406-500: A possible match-up with the top seed until one round later. MLS' format is identical, except that the conference quarterfinals is a best-of-three series. In some situations, a seeding restriction may be implemented; from 1975 until 1989 in the NFL , and from 1994 until 2011 in MLB there was a rule where at the conference or league semifinal, should the top seed and last seed (wild card) be from
464-437: A quarter-final from the previous year . Sometimes the remaining competitors in a single-elimination tournament will be "re-seeded" so that the highest surviving seed is made to play the lowest surviving seed in the next round, the second-highest plays the second-lowest, etc. This may be done after each round, or only at selected intervals. In American team sports, for example, the NFL employs this tactic, but MLS , NHL and
522-781: A resolution of the FIDE General Assembly and the Qualification Committee, with no formal written criteria. FIDE first awarded the Grandmaster title in 1950 to 27 players. These players were: Since FIDE did not award the Grandmaster title posthumously, world-class players who died prior to 1950, including World Champions Steinitz , Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine, never received the title. A few strong still living players such as British India's Mir Sultan Khan , Germany's Paul Lipke and France's Eugene Znosko-Borovsky were not awarded titles. Sultan Khan
580-445: A shootout poker tournament , there are more than two players competing at each table, and sometimes more than one progresses to the next round. Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage, often called playoffs . In English , the round in which only eight competitors remain is generally called (with or without hyphenation)
638-695: Is 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5, for example this is used for 16 seeds in the World Snooker Championship and 32 seeds in the World Darts Championship . Some tournaments stray from this, for example it is not the procedure that is followed in most tennis tournaments, where the 1 and 2 seeds are placed in separate brackets, but then the 3 and 4 seeds are assigned to their brackets randomly, and so too are seeds 5 through 8, and so on. This may result in some brackets consisting of stronger players than other brackets, and since only
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#1732776732312696-533: Is first - for example, if sorting the numbers 1-4 ascending, if 4 and 3 meet in the first round, 3 and 1 will lose in the first round and 2 will lose in the second, selecting 4 as the largest number in the set, but insufficient comparisons have been performed to determine which is greater, 1 or 3. Despite this, the candidate that loses in the final round is commonly considered to have taken second place (in this case, 2). When matches are held to determine places or prizes lower than first and second, these typically include
754-648: Is open to all players regardless of gender. The great majority of grandmasters are men, but 42 women have been awarded the GM title as of 2024, out of a total of about 2000 grandmasters. There is also a Woman Grandmaster title with lower requirements awarded only to women. There are also Grandmaster titles for composers and solvers of chess problems , awarded by the World Federation for Chess Composition (see List of grandmasters for chess composition ). The International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) awards
812-517: Is rare in English itself, with noticeable use in American debate tournaments. The round before the round of sixteen is sometimes called round of thirty-two in English. Terms for this in other languages generally translate as "sixteenth final". Earlier rounds are typically numbered counting forwards from the first round, or by the number of remaining competitors. If some competitors get a bye ,
870-399: Is recorded from 1590. The first known use of the term grandmaster in connection with chess was in the 18 February 1838 issue of Bell's Life , in which a correspondent referred to William Lewis as "our past grandmaster". Subsequently, George Walker and others referred to Philidor as a grandmaster, and the term was also applied to a few other players. The Ostend tournament of 1907
928-421: The 1980 edition . Sometimes, contests are also held among the losers of the quarterfinal matches to determine fifth to eighth places. In one scenario, two "consolation semifinal" matches may be conducted, with the winners of these then facing off to determine fifth and sixth places and the losers playing for seventh and eighth; those are used often in qualifying tournaments where only the top five teams advance to
986-573: The NBA do not (and neither does the NCAA college basketball tournament ). Although MLB does have enough teams (12) in its playoff tournament where re-seeding would have made a large difference in the matchups; only the WNBA's at the minimum, which is at least four from each conference for a total of 8. The NBA's format calls for the winner of the first-round series between the first and eighth seeds (within each of
1044-627: The World Junior Championship , or the World Senior Championship , or a Continental Chess Championship, given that the player's peak FIDE rating is at least 2300. Current regulations can be found in the FIDE Handbook. FIDE titles including the grandmaster title are valid for life, but FIDE regulations allow a title to be revoked for "use of a FIDE title or rating to subvert the ethical principles of
1102-1482: The quarter-final round; this is followed by the semi-final round, in which only four are left, the two winners of which then meet in the final or championship round . The round before the quarterfinals has multiple designations. Often it is called the round of sixteen , last sixteen , or (in South Asia) pre-quarterfinals . In many other languages the term for these eight matches translates to eighth-final (e.g., in these European languages: "huitième de finale" in French , "achtste finale" in Dutch, octavos de final in Spanish , Achtelfinale in German , åttondelsfinal in Swedish , ottavi di finale in Italian , oitavos-de-final in Portuguese , optimi de finală in Romanian , osmifinále in Czech , osemfinále in Slovak , and osmina finala in Serbo-Croatian ), though this term
1160-627: The "Dorazil" proposals, presented to the 1970 Siegen Chess Olympiad FIDE Congress. The proposals were put together by Wilfried Dorazil (then FIDE Vice-President) and fellow Committee members Grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić and Professor Arpad Elo . The recommendations of the Committee report were adopted in full. In essence, the proposals built on the work done by Professor Elo in devising his Elo rating system. The establishment of an updated list of players and their Elo rating enabled significantly strong international chess tournaments to be allocated
1218-509: The 1965 Congress in Wiesbaden FIDE raised the standards required for international titles. The International Grandmaster title regulations were: To fulfill requirement 2b, the candidate must score one GM norm in a category 1a tournament or two norms within a three-year period in two Category 1b tournaments, or one Category 2a tournament and one Category 1b tournament. The categories of tournaments are: Since FIDE titles are for life,
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#17327767323121276-574: The 2 long games and decide the winner in tiebreaks. It is often remarked that the system is mostly a lottery of who survives, though better players have more chances on the whole. The anticlimax of the 4-round final, with both players now already qualified for the Candidates , has also been criticized. "Qual" refers to the number of players who qualify for the Candidates Tournament (marked with green background). For example, in 2015,
1334-594: The Candidates Tournament. Two World Cup qualifiers ( Boris Gelfand in 2009 and Sergey Karjakin in 2015) won the subsequent Candidates tournament and played in the World Championship match, in 2012 and 2016 respectively. Since 2005, the format has been 128 players with 7 single-elimination rounds of "mini-matches", which are 2 games each followed by a series of rapid then blitz tiebreaks if necessary. The final usually has 4 games before
1392-590: The FAV system, in recognition of the work done by International Judge Giovanni Ferrantes (Italy), Alexander (probably Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander ), and Giancarlo Dal Verme (Italy). Under the 1957 regulations, the title of International Grandmaster of the FIDE was automatically awarded to: The regulations also allowed titles to be awarded by a FIDE Congress on recommendation by the Qualification Committee. Recommendations were based on performance in qualifying tournaments, with
1450-665: The International Chess Federation, staged their "First Chess World Cup" and "Second Chess World Cup" respectively. These were major tournaments, but not directly linked to the World Chess Championship . Both the 2000 and 2002 events were won by Viswanathan Anand of India . Both tournaments began with a round-robin stage, consisting of four groups of six players each. The top two players from each group were subsequently seeded into an eight-player single-elimination bracket. Since 2005,
1508-553: The Olympiad that also contain a bid for the preceding World Cup. During the 2015 finals of the World Cup, the main organizer commented "We received the right to host the Olympiad and then we were given an additional event – the World Cup." The Chess World Cup 2005 qualified ten players for the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship 2007 . Since then, every World Cup has qualified between one and three players for
1566-542: The Soviet Union's Chess Federation established the title of Grandmaster of the Soviet Union, in the form of the German loan word "Großmeister". At the time Soviet players were not competing outside their own country. This title was abolished in 1931, after having been awarded to Boris Verlinsky , who won the 1929 Soviet Championship . The title was brought back in 1935, and awarded to Mikhail Botvinnik , who thus became
1624-411: The actual score that participants must achieve to attain a GM or IM result (nowadays referred to as a norm ). To qualify for the Grandmaster title, a player needed to achieve three such GM results within a rolling period of three years. Exceptionally, if a player's contributory games totalled 30 or more, then the title could be awarded on the basis of two such results. There were also circumstances where
1682-453: The competition, seeding is often used to prevent this. Brackets are set up so that the top two seeds could not possibly meet until the final round (should both advance that far), none of the top four can meet prior to the semifinals, and so on. If no seeding is used, the tournament is called a random knockout tournament. Standard seeding pairs the highest and lowest, then second highest and second lowest and so on, for an 8 seed tournament this
1740-568: The earliest known sources that support this story are an article by Robert Lewis Taylor in the June 15, 1940, issue of The New Yorker and Marshall's autobiography My 50 Years of Chess (1942). Before 1950, the term grandmaster was sometimes informally applied to world class players. The Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE, or International Chess Federation) was formed in Paris in 1924, but at that time did not award formal titles. In 1927,
1798-499: The first "official" Grandmaster of the USSR. Verlinsky did not get his title back. In 1950 FIDE created the titles of Grandmaster (GM), International Master (IM) and Woman Master (WM, later known as Woman International Master or WIM). The grandmaster title is sometimes called "International Grandmaster" (IGM), possibly to distinguish it from similar national titles, but the shortened form is far more common today. Titles were awarded by
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1856-497: The format section above. Grandmaster (chess) Grandmaster ( GM ) is a title awarded to chess players by the world chess organization FIDE . Apart from World Champion , Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Once achieved, the title is held for life, though exceptionally the title can be revoked for cheating . The title of Grandmaster, along with the lesser FIDE titles of International Master (IM) , FIDE Master (FM) , and Candidate Master (CM) ,
1914-399: The next round; or some method of ranking the four quarterfinal losers might be employed, in which case only one round of additional matches would be held among them, the two highest-ranked therein then playing for fifth and sixth places and the two lowest for seventh and eighth. The number of distinct ways of arranging a single-elimination tournament (as an abstract structure, prior to seeding
1972-420: The number of registered players rated over 2200 had increased even faster. Since that FIDE congress, discussion of the value of the grandmaster title has occasionally continued. Starting from 1977, FIDE awarded honorary Grandmaster titles to 32 players based on their past performances or other contributions to chess. The following players have been awarded honorary Grandmaster titles. Marić and Honfi were awarded
2030-402: The number of whom has grown considerably over the years, have some name recognition in the world of sport and are typically the highest earners in chess. FIDE titles are only awarded at the quarterly FIDE Council meetings. Players who have qualified for the GM title but have not yet been awarded it are informally referred to as "GM-elect". Usage of grandmaster for an expert in some field
2088-523: The old regulations, although a provision was maintained that allowed older masters who had been overlooked to be awarded titles. The new regulations awarded the title of International Grandmaster of the FIDE to players meeting any of the following criteria: After FIDE issued the 1953 title regulations, it was recognized that they were somewhat haphazard, and work began to revise the regulations. The FIDE Congress in Vienna in 1957 adopted new regulations, called
2146-414: The opportunity to face every other player/team. Also, if the competitors' performance is variable, that is, it depends on a small, varying factor in addition to the actual strength of the competitors, then not only will it become less likely that the strongest competitor actually wins the tournament, in addition the seeding done by the tournament organizers will play a major part in deciding the winner. As
2204-604: The other. If a small number of teams play in a single elimination tournament, sometimes a consolation bracket is included to allow the eliminated teams to play more than once. This was the format of the Little League World Series until 1992. The format is less suited to games where draws are frequent. In chess , each fixture in a single-elimination tournament must be played over multiple matches, because draws are common , and because white has an advantage over black. In association football , games ending in
2262-587: The players into the tournament) is given by the Wedderburn–Etherington numbers . Thus, for instance, there are three different arrangements for five players: However, the number of arrangements grows quickly for larger numbers of players and not all of them are commonly used. Opponents may be allocated randomly (such as in the FA Cup); however, since the "luck of the draw" may result in the highest-rated competitors being scheduled to face each other early in
2320-571: The regular season (or did not take place, in some cases). In international fencing competitions, it is common to have a group stage . Participants are divided in groups of 6–7 fencers who play a round-robin tournament, and a ranking is calculated from the consolidated group results. Single elimination is seeded from this ranking. The single-elimination format enables a relatively large number of competitors to participate. There are no "dead" matches (perhaps excluding "classification" matches), and no matches where one competitor has more to play for than
2378-431: The regulations. The subcommittee recommended that the automatic award of titles be abolished, criticized the methods used for awarding titles based on qualifying performances, and called for a change in the makeup of the Qualification Committee. Several delegates supported the subcommittee recommendations, including GM Miguel Najdorf who felt that existing regulations were leading to an inflation of international titles. At
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2436-438: The relevant score to demonstrate that they had performed at Grandmaster (GM) or International Master (IM) level. Scores were expressed as percentages of a perfect maximum score and decreased as the tournament Category increased, thereby reflecting the strength of a player's opposition and the relative difficulty of the task. Tournament organisers could then apply the percentages to their own tournament format and declare in advance
2494-533: The required score depending on the percentage of Grandmasters and International Masters in the tournament. Concerns were raised that the 1957 regulations were too lax. At the FIDE Congress in 1961, GM Milan Vidmar said that the regulations "made it possible to award international titles to players without sufficient merit". At the 1964 Congress in Tel Aviv , a subcommittee was formed to propose changes to
2552-446: The round at which they enter may be named the first round , with the earlier matches called a preliminary round , qualifying round , opening round , or the play-in games . Examples of the diverse names given to concurrent rounds in various select disciplines: Notes: The knockout round of the 2002 FIFA World Cup tournament: Without any additional matches, the only position a single-elimination tournament can reliably determine
2610-399: The same division, they cannot play each other; in that case, the top seed plays the worst division champion; the second-best division champion plays the wild card team. This is due to the scheduling employed for the regular season, in which a team faces any given divisional opponent more often than any given non-divisional opponent – the tournament favors match-ups that took place fewer times in
2668-522: The system could be adapted to fit team events and other competitions. The full proposals included many other rules and regulations, covering such topics as: To become a grandmaster, a player must achieve both of the following: The Grandmaster title is also automatically conferred, without needing to fulfill the above criteria, when reaching the final 16 in the World Cup , winning the Women's World Cup ,
2726-491: The tiebreaks start. Since 2015, an extra rest day has recently been added before the semi-finals, in addition to before the final. Some criticism has been leveled at the scheduling effects, with the event being rather long (26 days), particularly with almost all of the players having left long before the end. Fatigue thus plays a critical role, and while some players seek to conserve energy by avoiding tiebreaks, others "agree" (either explicitly or implicitly) to make short draws in
2784-461: The title of International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster (ICCGM). Both of these bodies are now independent of FIDE , but work in cooperation with it. "Super grandmaster" is an informal term to refer to the world's elite players. In the past this would refer to players with an Elo rating of over 2600, but as the average Elo rating of the top players has increased, it has typically come to refer to players with an Elo rating of over 2700. Super GMs,
2842-641: The title or rating system" or if a player is found to have violated the anti-cheating regulations in a tournament on which the title application was based. Exact regulations can be found in the FIDE Handbook . A report prepared by Bartłomiej Macieja for the Association of Chess Professionals mentions discussion at the FIDE congress of 2008 regarding a perceived decrease in value of the grandmaster title. The number of grandmasters had increased greatly between 1972 and 2008, but according to Macieja,
2900-406: The title posthumously in the year of their death, and Sultan Khan 58 years later. Bibliography Single-elimination A single-elimination, knockout , or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, whose winner becomes
2958-643: The top 2 finishers qualified for the 2016 Candidates Tournament . In 2021, Sergey Karjakin qualified for the 2022 Candidates Tournament via the World Cup, but was subsequently disqualified for making statements in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine . In 2023, only the top three players were meant to qualify, but Magnus Carlsen declined to participate in the Candidates; thus the fourth place, Nijat Abasov , qualified as well. All tournaments since 2005 were played in single-elimination format, as seen in
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#17327767323123016-476: The top 32 players of 128 are seeded in Tennis Grand Slam tournaments, it can happen that the 33rd-best player in a 128-player field could end up playing the top seed in the first round. An example of this occurring was when World No. 33 Florian Mayer was drawn against, and defeated by, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the first round of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships , in what was also a rematch of
3074-549: The tournament champion(s). Each match-up may be a single match or several, for example two-legged ties in European sports or best-of series in North American pro sports. Defeated competitors may play no further part after losing, or may participate in "consolation" or "classification" matches against other losers to determine the lower final rankings; for example, a third place playoff between losing semi-finalists. In
3132-470: The tournament. In a single-elimination tournament without any seeding, awarding the second place to the loser of the final is unjustified: any of the competitors knocked out before getting to play the losing finalist might have been stronger than the actual losing finalist. In general, it is only fair to use a single-elimination tournament to determine first place. To fairly determine lower places requires some form of round-robin in which each player/team gets
3190-438: The two conferences the league has) to face the winner of the first-round series between the fourth and fifth seeds in the next round, even if one or more of the top three seeds had been upset in their first-round series; critics have claimed that this gives a team fighting for the fifth and sixth seeding positions near the end of the regular season an incentive to tank (deliberately lose) games, so as to finish sixth and thus avoid
3248-624: Was a designated grandmaster event. Rubinstein won with 12½ points out of 19. Tied for second with 12 points were Aron Nimzowitsch and Rudolf Spielmann . By some accounts, in the St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament , the title Grandmaster was formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II , who had partially funded the tournament. The Tsar reportedly awarded the title to the five finalists: Emanuel Lasker , José Raúl Capablanca , Alexander Alekhine , Siegbert Tarrasch , and Frank Marshall . Chess historian Edward Winter has questioned this, stating that
3306-598: Was awarded the GM title posthumously in 2024. Title awards under the original regulations were subject to political concerns. Efim Bogoljubow , who had emigrated from the Soviet Union to Germany, was not entered in the first class of Grandmasters, even though he had played two matches for the World Championship with Alekhine. He received the title in 1951, by a vote of thirteen to eight with five abstentions. Yugoslavia supported his application, but all other Communist countries opposed it. In 1953, FIDE abolished
3364-664: Was divided into two sections: the Championship Tournament and the Masters' Tournament. The Championship section was for players who had previously won an international tournament. Siegbert Tarrasch won the Championship section, over Carl Schlechter , Dawid Janowski , Frank Marshall , Amos Burn , and Mikhail Chigorin . These players were described as grandmasters for the purposes of the tournament. The San Sebastián 1912 tournament won by Akiba Rubinstein
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