FIDE Announces Major Format Change For World Blitz Championship

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) is moving from its traditional 21-round Swiss format in the 2024 World Blitz Championship in New York, introducing a combined Swiss-and-knockout format.

Just a week after FIDE announced a change of schedule for the World Rapid & Blitz Championships, introducing a rest day and extending the event to six days, the governing chess body revealed another twist on Thursday.

Instead of the traditional 21-round Swiss event, which has been in place since 2014, the World Blitz Chess Championship will move to a two-stage format. The first phase will follow the familiar Swiss system, but shortening it to 13 rounds for the Open section and 11 rounds for the Women’s. Instead of continuing with the Swiss on day two, the top-eight players will move to a knockout bracket consisting of four-game matches throughout the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final.

“This is not only much more exciting but also will allow for the direct match-ups of the strongest players to decide the winners,” FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky said in a statement.

While most players will now be able to return home for New Year celebrations, the two finalists will have gone through a minimum of 25 blitz games, excluding possible tiebreaks. FIDE did not yet announce the full regulations for the event.

FIDE’s decision to introduce a knockout phase likely comes from a desire to increase the competitiveness due to the prevalence of short draws that have occurred in the final rounds of previous blitz events. Many top players opted for quick draws in order to secure a cash prize, rather than fight for medals.

“The Blitz format allows for the matches of four games to be played at each stage of the KO [knockout], whilst a long-enough qualifier with eight spots reduces the role of chance. Oftentimes, there is a trade-off between objective merit and attractiveness–here, we will have both,” Sutovsky said.

Making it into the top-eight, however, won’t be an easy feat—even for GM Magnus Carlsen. Last year’s round-13 standings show that the defending champion would have narrowly made it to the knockout stage if today’s changes had been in effect.

The 2024 World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships will take place in New York’s Wall Street district from December 26 to 31. The exact location is yet to be announced. The rest day on December 29 is dedicated to Chess Davos, a conference exploring the intersection between chess and finance, according to FIDE.

A preliminary list of participants is yet to be announced, but in addition to Carlsen, top U.S. players such as GMs Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura are expected to take part. GM Anish Giri seems to be planning his participation as well as he commented to FIDE’s announced changes on X:

You can do these things later. First please secure the event and let the players book the flights and accommodation.

— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) September 5, 2024