OMM Newsroom
The group stage of the Total Chess World Championship Tour Pilot in Budapest begins on November 11. Azerbaijani chess player Shakhriyar Mammadyarov will face Hayk Martirosyan in his opening match. The players will contest two games during the day: the first starts at 18:00 and the second at 21:30. Mammadyarov will play with the black pieces in the first game and the white pieces in the second.
Mammadyarov is competing in Group C alongside Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Abhimanyu Mishra and Martirosyan. A total of 24 players in Budapest have been divided into four groups. The group stage, running from November 11 to 15, will use a round-robin format, with each player facing each of their five opponents in two games.
Tournament format
The tournament runs from November 10 to 20. The project, developed by the organizers of Norway Chess with FIDE’s support, combines fast classical chess, rapid and blitz. In this pilot tournament, the time control is 45 minutes, with a 30-second increment per move. A win is worth three points and a draw one point.
Group winners will compete in the upper bracket of the playoffs, while the other players will enter additional brackets according to their group standings. Each playoff match will consist of four blitz games, two rapid games and one fast classical game per day; if necessary, the winner will be decided in an Armageddon game. The semifinals are scheduled for November 17-18, and the final for November 19-20.
In the nine-round blitz tournament held on November 10, Mammadyarov finished 20th with 3.5 points. Carlsen won with seven points, followed by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on 6.5 and Levon Aronian on six. The blitz results will be used as a tiebreaker in the groups and taken into account in playoff seeding.
The tournament has a prize fund of $650,000 (1.105 million manat), with $80,000 (136,000 manat) awarded to the winner. The prize money will be shared among the 24 participants. Organizers are testing the format ahead of an international tour set to begin in 2027; results from that tour are intended to determine FIDE’s world champion in combined chess.
Context
It was announced on November 9 that Mammadyarov would take part in the tournament, which was due to begin in Budapest on November 10. The competition was scheduled to open with a nine-round blitz tournament.
