World Team Rapid Championship - Live!

by ChessBase
6/17/2026 – The World Team Rapid Chess Championship is taking place on 17-19 June in Hong Kong. The tournament is played as a 12-round Swiss open (4 rounds per day), with six-player team matches. Elite GMs Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Viswanathan Anand, alongside female superstars Ju Wenjun, Bibisara Assaubayeva and Alexandra Kosteniuk are among the participants. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 8.00 CEST (2.00 ET, 11.30 IST) | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza
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Rounds 1-4

The World Team Rapid Chess Championship is taking place on 17-19 June at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Hong Kong.

The tournament is played as a 12-round Swiss open (4 rounds per day), with six-player team matches. Teams shall include:

  • One female player
  • One "recreational" player (not the female representative listed above), who never achieved a FIDE Standard, Rapid or Blitz rating of 2000 Elo points or equivalent national rating up to and including the March 2026 rating lists

The time control is 15 minutes for the whole game, with an increment of 10 seconds per move starting from move 1.

A win scores 2 match points. A draw scores 1 match point. A loss scores 0 points. The team with the highest number of match points will be declared the champion.

If there is a tie in match points, the following tiebreak criteria will be employed:

  1. Sum of ISi for the 11 best team opponents. ISi is determined as GPi x FMPi, where:
    • GPi is the number of game points scored in a match against opponent "i".
    • FMPi is the final number of match points scored by opponent "i".
  2. Number of game points scored.
  3. Sum of the match points of 11 teams opponents, excluding the team opponent with the lowest number of match points.

Full regulations | Team composition, pairings and results

Live games and commentary

Commentary by GMs David Howell and Evgenij Miroshnichenko

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