World Rapid and Blitz C'ship 2024: Focus on Erigaisi with FIDE points on offer – Preview

The tournament will begin with a three-day rapid competition for both open and women and will be followed by a brand new two-stage blitz format in both sections, culminating on December 31.

Top players in the fray

While the newly crowned classical world champion Gukesh Dommaraju has withdrawn from the event, other top players including reigning world rapid and blitz champion Magnus Carlsen, world No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura, Iranian-French chess phenom Alireza Firouzja, women’s world champion Ju Wenjun, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Bibisara Assaubayeva, and others will be in action.

As for India, the major focus will be on GM Arjun Erigaisi, who will have to win the rapid event if he is to overtake American GM Fabiano Caruana in the FIDE Circuit and qualify for the upcoming 2026 Candidates.

The other big names from India, who will be in contention include teenage sensation GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and his sister Vaishali Rameshbabu, former world rapid champion GM Koneru Humpy, the experienced GM Harika Dronavalli, GM Raunak Sadhwani, IM Divya Deshmukh and others.

Here are the Indian players in the fray:

No	Players	Section	Event
1	Arjun Erigaisi	Open	Rapid and Blitz
2	R Praggnanandhaa	Open	Rapid and Blitz
3	Raunak Sadhwani	Open	Rapid and Blitz
4	Sandipan Chanda	Open	Rapid and Blitz
5	Aravindh Chithambaram	Open	Rapid and Blitz
6	Harsha Bharathkoti	Open	Rapid and Blitz
7	Pranav V	Open	Rapid and Blitz
8	Diptayan Ghosh	Open	Rapid and Blitz
9	Karthik Venkataraman	Open	Rapid and Blitz
10	Koneru Humpy	Women	Rapid and Blitz
11	Harika Dronavalli	Women	Rapid and Blitz
12	R Vaishali	Women	Rapid and Blitz
13	Divya Deshmukh	Women	Rapid and Blitz
14	Vantika Agrawal	Women	Rapid and Blitz
15	Sahithi Varshini	Women	Rapid and Blitz
16	Padmini Rout	Women	Rapid and Blitz
17	Priyanka Nutakki	Women	Rapid and Blitz

The format

The three-day rapid event which kick starts the championship will be a 13-round affair in the open section and an 11-round competition in the women’s event.

Each player will start with 15 minutes on the clock and will have an increment of 10 seconds per move.

The blitz event, which will be held on 30^th and 31^st December will also have 13 rounds in the open section and 11 rounds in the women’s event.

The players will have just three minutes on the clock to start the match and will get a two second increment for each move made.

However, unlike the rapid competition where the winner will be decided at the end of the said rounds, the blitz competition will witness a knockout stage for the first-time ever.

After the 13 rounds in open and 11 rounds in women’s section are done on December 30, the top eight ranked players in both section will compete in a knockout format, starting with the quarter-finals.

The 2024 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships will see a total prize pool of $1.5 million.

Former champions

Viswanathan Anand in the open rapid and Humpy in the women’s rapid are the only two Indians in history to win titles at the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz, which was started in 2012.

While Anand lifted the title in 2017, Humpy followed in his footsteps two years later in 2019.

Carlsen continues to be the most successful player in the event with six blitz and five rapid titles against his name.