The FIDE World Combined Champion

In sporting competition, the aim is always to find out who is better. And at the next level, of course, people also want to know who is the very best in a particular sport or discipline.

The best of the best

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Even before the "invention" of World Championships, there was always one chess player who was regarded as the best. Philidor, Anderssen and Morphy, for example. From Steinitz onwards, there was a certain formalisation of the contests for the World Championship. The world champion was the player who had defeated the previous world champion in a match for the title. After Alekhine's death, FIDE took over responsibility for awarding the title and introduced fixed rules for organising the World Championships. They were well-thought-out rules: Zonal and Interzonal tournaments in the first year, Candidates Tournaments or Candidates matches in the second, and the World Championship match in the third. Some rules, however, were complete nonsense – the right to a rematch, for example.

Before Elo ratings were introduced, it was largely a matter of perception whether the world champion was also the world's best player. Elo ratings provided a second criterion. The succession of world champions Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen more or less represented the best players in the world in their respective eras.

There can be only one

The dispute between FIDE president Campomanes and Kasparov led Kasparov and Short to play their 1993 World Championship match outside FIDE. For many years afterwards, there were two chess world champions, which was not good for the standing of chess in the sporting world or elsewhere. Campomanes' successor also dismantled the old World Championship format by introducing annual knockout World Championships, which likewise damaged the prestige of the world title.

In 2006, the two World Championships were finally reunified. The match between Kramnik and Topalov, however, went down in history as a particularly scandal-ridden affair. After years of criticism, FIDE finally abandoned the knockout format for the World Championship and returned to a match format in 2008.

Instead of the former three-year cycle, however, FIDE now introduced a two-year cycle and also changed the qualification paths for finding a challenger several times.

Too many World Championship matches

With the two-year cycle, the world champion now had to defend the title every two years rather than every three years as before. The patient Anand dutifully went along with this, but his successor Carlsen lost his enthusiasm for the exercise after four title defences in seven years and stepped away in 2023. It is not as if Carlsen no longer enjoys chess - quite the opposite. With well over 8,000 games across all kinds of disciplines, the 16^th world champion is among the players with the most games in the Mega Database and, by a wide margin, the world champion with the most recorded games. By comparison, only 1,024 games by Fischer are known. The vast majority of Carlsen's games, however, were played online at short and very short time controls.

Carlsen's departure as world champion created a legitimacy problem for FIDE's flagship World Chess Championship. Carlsen continued playing in all kinds of formats, won one online tournament after another and collected titles at the World Rapid and Blitz Championships. He also continued to lead the world rankings by a substantial margin.

The less imposing successors

For Carlsen's successors on the World Championship throne, however, the world champion's mantle proved far too large. The 17^th world champion, Ding Liren, struggled with mental health problems after winning the title and fell sharply in the Elo rankings. It was similar with the 18^th world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju. Kramnik had already faced criticism after winning his title because he was only second or third in the world rankings. Now the chess world champions were ranked somewhere among the also-rans.

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In his talks with FIDE, Carlsen had already proposed other formats. The Norwegian was frustrated by matches lasting several weeks, the endless preparation and the possibility – or necessity – of preparing openings with extreme precision using engines. In his view, the actual playing of chess, where the better player could demonstrate his strengths, was being lost. Carlsen put forward alternative formats, and FIDE has now accepted the idea of a format combining different time controls, apparently not coincidentally proposed by the Norway Chess organisers, featuring the disciplines of Fast Classic, Rapid and Blitz.

New formats wanted

The format is not entirely new, of course, as a tournament of this kind has been played in Biel for several years. The Swiss call it a "triathlon", which describes it quite well. Under FIDE, the format is called "Total Chess". Presumably the Norwegians came up with that name too. The whole thing is the "Total Chess World Championship Tour".

FIDE has not always had the happiest touch when it comes to naming things. "Grand Swiss" is another example – the "big Swiss", or what exactly? Who outside the chess world is supposed to understand that? Is the Total Chess World Championship now somehow more than the World Championship? And is the Total Chess world title worth more than the world title?

Of course, the Total Chess World Championship Tour is not supposed to have a higher status than the (absolute? classical? normal?) World Championship. FIDE is nevertheless giving the format considerable importance by making the Total Chess World Championship Tour a qualification path for the Candidates Tournament. The two best players in the Total Chess series will be able to play in the next Candidates Tournament.

Candidates regulations...

In Total Chess, the three disciplines are Fast Classic (45 minutes + 30 seconds), Rapid (15+10) and Blitz (3+2). A match consists of one Fast Classic game, two Rapid games and four Blitz games. Naturally, the scoring is weighted differently, with eight points for the Fast Classic game, four points for a Rapid game and two points for a Blitz game. Please memorise that before next time.

The whole competition is conceived as a series of three tournaments in different locations. Twenty-four players take part in the events. Tour points are awarded according to finishing position. The top four in the overall standings then meet in the Grand Final.

Explainer video

Total or combined world champion?

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The winner of the Grand Final at the end is not, in fact, the Total Chess World Champion, but the FIDE World Combined Champion. There may have been discussions behind the scenes about what to call the title, but having two names (Total Chess and Combined Chess) for the same thing is not really ideal either.

Next Tuesday, things get under way in Budapest with a pilot event. The event begins with the opening ceremony and a Blitz tournament, as is familiar from Norway Chess events. The result of the Blitz tournament will later serve as a tiebreak in the event of players finishing level on points. A group stage with four groups of six players then follows. The four group winners advance to the knockout stage, with semifinals and a final.

Not all, but many of the current top players will be competing in Budapest, along with several other strong players. Magnus Carlsen is among them, and from a German perspective, it is particularly pleasing that Vincent Keymer is also taking part.

The Total Chess organisers have also already created a combined world ranking based on FIDE's Classical, Rapid and Blitz ratings. Magnus Carlsen's lead over the rest is even larger there than usual.

• The Total Chess world ranking...
• And this is how it works...

An interesting question: if Magnus Carlsen wins the Total Chess World Championship Tour, will he then also play in the Candidates Tournament for the classical World Championship? Or will he be content with the title of FIDE World Combined Champion?

• Total Chess website...
• Budapest pilot tournament page...

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