As Magnus Carlsen and 23 others await, Total Chess chief defends fast classical-only group stage: ‘Good way to do it’ | Exclusive | Chess News

Total Chess chief Kjell Madland defends fast classical-only group stage

NEW DELHI: World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen and 23 other players are set to take over the board at the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot in Budapest, but the build-up to the event has been shadowed by questions about its format.Speaking exclusively to TimesofIndia.com, Total Chess World Championship chief Kjell Madland defended the pilot’s format, under which qualification for the semi-finals is decided purely by fast classical. Rapid and Blitz come into play only after the group stage, which means 20 of the 24 players will not play either format before they are out of the race for the title.The tournament begins on November 10 at the Anantara New York Palace in Budapest, Hungary. A nine-round Swiss-system blitz tournament and the opening ceremony are held on the same day.Next up, the 24 players are then split into four groups of six, with the four highest-rated players in separate groups. Each group plays a double round robin at fast classical, which gives 45 minutes per player and a 30-second increment from move one, with three points for a win and one for a draw.The four group winners go through to the semi-finals, where they play Rapid and Blitz as well as fast classical. The other 20 players will play for positions 5 to 24 in all three formats, but they will not be in the race for the finale, which will take place on November 20.Madland, the founder and CEO of Norway Chess and the Total Chess World Championship Tour, rejected the suggestion that those 20 players are sidelined.“They are not eliminated,” he told this website. “All the players will play all the games until the last day.”The nine-round Blitz Swiss does not count towards qualification, but its standings break ties in the group tables. “If players are tied in the group stage, then we will look at the results in the blitz tournament to decide who is number two, three and four,” Madland added.He said the group stage uses fast classical because the time control, announced by FIDE in September 2025, is relatively new, and this is the best way to test it.“Since fast classical is a new format, it’s also good to have attention on this, so we think this is a good way to do it,” he said. “After that, the number one in all the groups will fight for first place, the number two will fight for the next place, and so on. But all the players will play all the games.”The knockouts use a different structure. The semi-finals, the third-place match and the final are each played over two days. Every day has four Blitz games, then two Rapid games, then one fast classical game, and scores reset each day. If the two days are split or both level, an Armageddon game decides the match. White gets ten minutes with no increment, and Black gets seven minutes with a one-second increment from move 41. A draw, in this case, wins the match for Black.Madland accepted that the format will draw questions. “Of course, we need to find a good way to do it. This is what we have done, and the players like it,” he noted. “Hopefully it will be good, but there will always be some questions about this and that. Hopefully this will work well.”He said the pilot status leaves room to adjust, though not drastically.“We don’t think we will do big adjustments. Hopefully we don’t need to think about that,” he said. “But when we have the pilot, it’s of course much easier if something is needed with rules and regulations. That’s possible. This is of course the reason we have this pilot, to test everything.”The pilot is the opening event of the Total Chess World Championship Tour 2026–27, which offers two places in the 2028 Candidates Tournament. It was announced by Norway Chess in October 2025, is endorsed by FIDE, and is co-organised with the Hungarian Chess Federation.Madland said the response so far has been positive.“We have received a lot of good feedback from everywhere, from players, from media and from fans,” he said. “People are very open to this, and I feel that people have also waited for something like this, because combining all the formats is a way to find the best players.”On why the format was built this way, he said: “I had a feeling for some years that we should build something that included everything, because we have talked with players, fans, media and everything.” He added that it would help the sport grow “in the media, in OTT and TV channels, in media deals.”“I hope people find this very interesting, and also that they are open to seeing that chess needs to change a bit to meet the new audience, so there will be more interest in it,” he said.The 24 participants of the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot 2026: