Differences between FIDE Circuit and Women's FIDE Circuit
FIDE has launched another circuit.
At the most recent FIDE Council last month, the FIDE Global Strategy Commission (led by FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky) launched the brand-new 2024-25 Women’s FIDE Circuit. Much like the ongoing 2024-25 World Championship cycle, the winner of this Women’s FIDE Circuit will qualify for the next Women’s Candidates instead of the Women’s World Championship runner-up.
The FIDE Circuit has been highly influential to both the World Championship cycle and professional chess in general. The winner of the first FIDE Circuit was Gukesh, and he went on to win the Candidates and become World Champion. If there was no FIDE Circuit, we would have a different World Champion right now. At the same time, the FIDE Circuit has been the subject of criticism ever since it was announced. In the two years since, at least some of that criticism has proven to be justified.
Will the Women’s FIDE Circuit be the same? Despite the circuit having a similar purpose, the two circuits are actually quite different. Let’s review the circuit formats, go over the differences, and at the end, we’ll see if the new Women’s FIDE Circuit is good or bad for women’s chess.
Overview
The current World Championship cycle actually features two separate FIDE Circuits, one for 2024 and one for 2025, that are largely the same. Players receive point scores (e.g. 11 for 1st, 8 for 2nd, etc.) for having good results at tournaments, specifically finishing in the Top 3 of a round-robin or Top 8 in a Swiss. These scores are then weighted according to the tournament’s strength, determined by the ratings of top eight players in the field. Stronger tournaments count more. Only tournaments with an average rating above 2600 receive a weight of at least 1.0, and tournaments with an average rating below 2500 don’t count at all. A player’s seven best scores count toward their total. Most of the tournaments have to be classical, although a player can count one or two rapid & blitz tournaments, with the World Rapid and World Blitz Championships worth the most and second-most respectively. At the end of the year, the top player not already qualified for the Candidates earns a spot there.
The new 2024-25 Women’s FIDE Circuit consists of only eight tournaments: (1, 2) the World Rapid Championship in 2024 & 2025, (3, 4), the World Blitz Championship in 2024 & 2025, (5), the 2025 World Cup, (6) the 2025 Grand Swiss, (7) the 2024-25 Women’s Grand Prix, which is counted not as individual tournaments but as a series, and (8) the World Championship match. FIDE has assigned points for finishing in the Top 8 of each of these tournaments or the overall Grand Prix series. At the end of next year, the player with the most points not already qualified for the Women’s Candidates earns a spot there.
Classical vs. Rapid & Blitz
The biggest difference is how much of the circuit is classical. For the FIDE Circuit, almost all of it is classical. Even the few events that are rapid and blitz are weighted lower. On the other hand, more than half the Women’s FIDE Circuit is rapid & blitz. Each of the World Rapid Championships is also weighted more than any of the classical events.
When the FIDE Circuit was announced, the fact that any of it was rapid & blitz, even if it was just a little, was met with criticism. Players were not happy with the possibility that rapid and blitz could determine a Candidates spot, especially given the World Rapid & Blitz Championships would be the final event of the circuit every year.
With the Women’s FIDE Circuit, it’s almost a certainty that the Candidates spot will be determined by the World Rapid & Blitz Championships, or really the World Rapid Championship. If the circuit had existed for the last cycle, five of the top seven players in the race for the Candidates spot would have had their top score come from the World Rapid & Blitz, with all but one from the World Rapid. The other two had their top score come from the Women’s Grand Prix. One advantage of giving the World Rapid & Blitz this much importance is that it should get all the top players to play the event, although almost all of the top players were already playing it in recent years.
Not only are the rapid & blitz events a lot more prominent, there are barely any classical events. In fact, there are no classical events at all where the winner counts towards the circuit. The winners AND runner-ups of the three classical tournaments (WGP, World Cup, and Grand Swiss) all already qualify for the Candidates, so they’re not part of the circuit. The only way you can get meaningful circuit points from a classical tournament is to finish 3rd or 4th in the Women’s Grand Prix series or the Grand Swiss. The Grand Swiss is essentially the only classical tournament on the circuit because the World Cup offers very few points and each leg of the Grand Prix doesn’t count individually.
To summarize, the Women’s FIDE Circuit essentially just pits the medallists in the two World Rapid Championships against the 3rd and 4th place finishers in the Grand Prix & Grand Swiss. The player who qualifies in the end will be mainly determined by if the winners of the World Rapid are already qualified.
Importance of events
The next major difference is the importance of events on the circuit. The Women’s FIDE Circuit only includes major FIDE tournaments that are part of the World Championship cycle or determine a (rapid or blitz) world championship. On the other hand, the FIDE Circuit includes almost literally any tournament, as long as it has a bunch of 2500s (or really 2600s to make it count enough).
The design of the FIDE Circuit has been met with criticism because it is mostly privately-organized (non-FIDE) events. Anyone can organize a tournament where the player roster or format are “rigged” to help one particular player win the circuit. For instance, many of these events are invitationals, so no one is guaranteed a spot no matter how good they are. If there are two main contenders to win the circuit, a private organizer backing one of them could just organize a tournament where their sponsored player is invited and the other isn’t. (The tournament needs to be registered far in advance, but the player list does not.)
This strategy to “rig” circuit events also works because private events count just as much, if not more than FIDE events. The only factor that determines the weight of the tournament is the rating of the players, not the importance of the tournament. (For example, a brand-new event will count just as much as FIDE events like the Candidates or more established events like the Grand Chess Tour.) These problems with the FIDE Circuit don’t exist with the Women’s FIDE Circuit. In that sense, FIDE has improved on that issue. On the other hand, there are a bunch of other established women’s events in existence (e.g. Cairns Cup, Norway Chess, European Women’s Championship, etc.). Why don’t any of those events count at all?
Also, while randomly organizing events is bad for FIDE Circuit purposes, at least it helps players get more opportunities to play and make money. That might not make as much difference for the men, but it would make a huge difference for the women. Barely anyone is organizing private women’s events. It would have been great if the Women’s FIDE Circuit motivated organizers to create more elite women’s events.
World Championship runner-up’s chances
The last major difference is the World Championship runner-up’s chances. Because Ding did so well in the match, he got a whopping 40+ points, which is way more than anyone else can get at any other tournament. (The highest score in this year’s circuit was 28.67 for winning the Sinquefield Cup.) But even if he got destroyed in the match like Nepo vs. Magnus, he would have still got 24 points, the equivalent of winning a 2700+ super-tournament. So basically no matter what, the World Championship runner-up would have been in good shape for next year’s FIDE Circuit. If Ding is interested in winning next year’s FIDE Circuit, he would be a huge favorite. With 40+ points, he would only need around 70 more points next year, whereas anyone else would need 110+. There essentially would be no FIDE Circuit in 2025 if Ding goes for it (unless he already qualifies through the World Cup or Grand Swiss).
On the other hand, the loser of the Ju Wenjun vs. Tan Zhongyi barely gets any circuit points for losing the match, regardless of how well they do. If it were like the FIDE Circuit and equivalent to winning a women’s super-tournament, the loser of the match would get about 80 points, or maybe even over 100 if they do well. But instead, regardless of the match score, they only get 25 points, which is only equivalent to tying for 6th place in the Women’s Grand Swiss. The expected score needed to win the circuit is about 120 points. So 25 probably wouldn’t make much difference, as we can see from how Lei Tingjie would have fared if there was a circuit last time.
Who would qualify?
All the tournament on the Women’s FIDE Circuit existed in 2022 and 2023, so we can just check who would have qualified. But first, we need to take into account that the circuit isn’t the only change. This time, 3rd place in the World Cup gets a Candidates spot, and FIDE is also giving 4th place in the World Cup a Candidates spot if one of the top three is already qualified. The other main change is that there is no longer a provision for the two Grand Swiss qualifiers to finish in the top three like there was in the past cycle.
Taking all that into account, here is what the final standings would have looked like:
Humpy Koneru would have qualified by virtue of her two strong performances (2nd and T-3rd) at the 2022 and 2023 World Rapid Championships. She in fact finished 5th in the circuit, but three of the players ahead of her were direct qualifiers (who really shouldn’t be in the standings once they qualify), and one other — Tan Zhongyi — would have been a replacement qualifier from 4th place in the World Cup (one of the other changes) because the winner Goryachkina had already qualified.
Humpy in fact did qualify for the last Candidates, but through the rating spot that was only there because Goryachkina was already qualified. Humpy’s qualification was a bit controversial because she had not done well in any classical tournaments in the preceding two years. With the new qualification rules, she still would have qualified, but through the circuit. It would only have been because she did well in rapid & blitz, which also probably would have been a bit controversial.
The biggest change to the Candidates wouldn’t have been from the circuit, but would have been Batkhuyag Munguntuul qualifying (as 4th place in the Grand Swiss) instead of Lei Tingjie (the World Championship runner-up). This is because the Grand Swiss has two qualifiers, two of the top three in the Grand Swiss (Anna Muzychuk and Tan Zhongyi) already qualified, and you no longer need to finish top 3 to get one of those two Candidates spots.
Meanwhile, Lei Tingjie wouldn’t have qualified. She only would have been 4th in the circuit, 44 points behind Humpy. Lei could have got more points had she played the Grand Prix, but the same could be said for Humpy, who missed a Grand Prix leg due to illness. Perhaps they both would have played with a Candidates spot at stake.
Looking at these standings, it does seem to confirm the expectation that the World Rapid Championships will be the main two tournaments determining a Candidates spot.
Is the Women’s FIDE Circuit good or bad?
The idea behind the FIDE Circuit is reward the player who does the best in classical year-round with a Candidates spot. Overall, that sounds like a good idea. The only potential issues are if it does a good job of determining that.
On the other hand, the idea behind the Women’s FIDE Circuit is to reward the player who does the best in rapid and blitz at the World Rapid & Blitz Championships. That doesn’t seem to make much sense. Why not have the women’s circuit serve the same purpose and at least try to also reward the best player in classical year-round with a Candidates spot?
The one advantage is that it does force the match runner-up to keep playing if they want to be in the next Candidates. After Lei Tingjie lost the last World Championship match, she basically stopped playing (much like Ding Liren) and didn’t play classical again until the next Candidates nine months later. She wouldn’t have had that option this time.
The other main downside is next Women’s World Championship match runner-up not automatically getting a spot in the next Candidates. With Ding, it was somewhat understandable because he has not been in form for over a year. But for the women, Tan Zhongyi and Ju Wenjun have been the two best players this year by a wide margin. If there was a Women’s FIDE Circuit this year following the format of the men’s circuit, Tan would have won it easily. Why shouldn’t either of them be in the next Candidates?
The new Women’s FIDE Circuit shows the same messiness and lack of thought put into it as the FIDE Circuit, probably even more. Whereas the winner of the FIDE Circuit getting a Candidates spot at least seemed deserved (maybe even 2nd or 3rd also seemed to deserve a spot), that seems a lot less likely for the women.
The Women’s FIDE Circuit officially starts this week at the Women’s World Rapid & Blitz Championships in New York. The winner of the rapid will be the early favorite to win the inaugural women’s circuit and qualify for the next Candidates. You don’t want to miss it!