The Chess World Cup 2015 will be played in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 10 September to 4 October 2015. It will be a 128-player knockout chess tournament. The finalists will qualify for the 2016 Candidates Tournament.

The Chess World Cup 2015 has a prize fund of 1,6 million USD. Matches consist of two games (except for the final, which consists of four). Players have 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from the start of the game. If a match is tied after the regular games, tie breaks will be played on the next day.

1 player: World Champion – Magnus Carlsen
4 players: Semi-finalists of the Chess World Cup 2013 – Evgeny Tomashevsky, Dmitry Andreikin, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Vladimir Kramnik (details)
1 player: Women’s World Champion 2014 TBA
2 players: World Junior Champions 2013 and 2014: Yu Yangyi (details) and Lu Shanglei (details)

18 players: Rating (average of all published ratings from February 2014 to January 2015 is used) – scroll down for details
56 players: European Individual Championships 2014 and 2015 – Alexander Motylev is champion + 23 players (details) and TBA + 23 players
8 players: American Continental Chess Championship 2014 and 2015 – GM Granda Zuniga + 4 players (details) and TBA + 4 players
10 players: Asian Chess Championship 2014 and 2015 – Yu Yangyi + 5 players (details) and TBA + 5 players
3 players: African Chess Championship 2015

25 players: From zonal championships Z2.1 (5), Z2.2 (1), Z2.3 (2), Z2.4 (2), Z2.5 (2), Z3.1 (1), Z3.2 (1), Z3.3 (2), Z3.4 (2), Z3.5 (2), Z3.6 (1), Z3.7 (1), Z4.1 (1), Z4.2 (1), Z4.3 (1)

1 player: From ACP – highest-placed participant of the ACP TOUR who has not qualified with the previous criteria
2 players: FIDE president nominee
4 players: Organizer nominee
3 players: INT qualifiers

Update Jan 8, 2015: FIDE has published the Top-40 spots of the average rating list from February 2014 to January 2015, which will determine the 18 rating qualifiers and any rating reserves needed for this year’s World Cup in Baku. As of today, all players with an average rating of over 2725.00 have qualified to the World Cup 2015, either through rating or via other criteria of the event regulations.


Name Fed Average

Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2872.5833
Aronian, Levon ARM 2808.0000
Caruana, Fabiano ITA 2803.6667
Grischuk, Alexander RUS 2792.1667
Anand, Viswanathan IND 2785.0000
Topalov, Veselin BUL 2784.5000
Nakamura, Hikaru USA 2775.4167
Kramnik, Vladimir RUS 2774.3333
Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2772.0000
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA 2758.8333
Giri, Anis9h NED 2756.9167
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2755.3333
Gelfand, Boris ISR 2752.0000
Dominguez Perez, Leinier CUB 2750.2500
So, Wesley USA 2748.6667
Adams, Michael ENG 2747.6667
Svidler, Peter RUS 2747.4167
Vitiugov, Nikita RUS 2740.8333
Jakovenko, Dmitry RUS 2736.3333
Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR 2735.2500
Leko, Peter HUN 2731.0833
Wojtaszek, Radoslaw POL 2730.0833
Ding, Liren CHN 2726.5000
Eljanov, Pavel UKR 2725.5000
Wang, Hao CHN 2724.8333
Harikrishna, P. IND 2723.5000
Morozevich, Alexander RUS 2723.3333
Bacrot, Etienne FRA 2722.7500
Nepomniachtchi, Ian RUS 2722.5833
Radjabov, Teimour AZE 2722.0833
Andreikin, Dmitry RUS 2721.9167
Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR 2718.5000
Navara, David CZE 2716.2500
Wang, Yue CHN 2715.9167
Jobava, Baadur GEO 2715.5000
Li, Chao b CHN 2712.8333
Fressinet, Laurent FRA 2709.6667
Naiditsch, Arkadij GER 2708.5000
Tomashevsky, Evgeny RUS 2705.0833
Rapport, Richard HUN 2704.0000
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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