World Rapid & Blitz Championship 2024: Format, schedule, prize money Details — All you need to know

World Rapid & Blitz Championship 2024: Format, schedule, prize money Details — All you need to know

The 2024 edition of the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships will be taking place at Wall Street, New York, from December 26 to December 31.

With interest in Indian chess at an all-time high after D Gukesh’s win in the World Chess Championship, hopes will be high for India’s top chess talents to go up against the world’s best.

Meanwhile, Magnus Carlson will be hoping to defend his title which he won in Samarkand in 2023.  

The format for the World Rapid Championship will follow a Swiss system, with 13 rounds in the Open Rapid format, and 11 in the Women’s Rapid round. The player with the most points at the end will be declared the World Rapid Champion. 

The format for the World Blitz Championship will follow the same Swiss system initially, with 13 and 11 rounds for Open Blitz and Women’s Blitz respectively. At the completion of these rounds, the top 8 will move into Stage 2, a knock-out format, to determine the winner. 

For the World Rapid Championship, each round will have a time control of 15 minutes, with 10-second increments per move starting from move 1.

For the World Blitz Championship, each round will have a time control of 3 minutes, with 2-second increments per move starting from move 1. 

If two or more players finish on the same number of points, the tie is broken by the following criteria:

Several Indians will be in action in both tournaments. 

Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggananandhaa, Raunak Sadhwani, Sandipan Chanda, Aravindh Chithambaram, Harsha Bharathakoti, Pranav V, Bharath Subramaniyam, Diptayan Ghosh and Karthik Venkataraman will be in action in the Open Blitz and Open Rapid. 

In the Women’s Blitz and Women’s Rapid, Humpy Koneru, Harika Dronavalli, Divya Deshmukh, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Vantika Agrawal, Sahithi Varshini M, Padmini Rout, and Priyanka Nutakki will be India’s representatives.  

The total prize money for the Open tournaments is $1,000,000 (approximately Rs. 8.5cr), with $90,000 for the player in first place in both. For the World Rapid Championship, prize money is divided equally among players who have the same number of points. For the World Blitz Championship, prize money is divided equally among players who finished on the same number of points and did not qualify for Stage 2. 

For the women’s tournaments, the total prize money is $428,500 (approximately Rs. 3.6cr), with $60,000 for the player in first place in both. Like in the Open tournaments, prize money for the Rapid Championship is divided equally among players who have the same number of points. For the Blitz Championship, it is divided equally among players who have finished on the same number of points and not qualified for Stage 2.