World Rapid Chess Championship 2025

FIDE World Rapid Championship is a chess tournament to be held in Doha, Qatar. The tournament will be held along with FIDE World Women's Rapid Championship 2025, FIDE World Blitz Chess Championship 2025 and FIDE World Women's Blitz Championship 2025. Volodar Murzin is the reigning World Rapid Champion.

Note:

• On February 27, 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIDE banned the display of Russian and Belarusian flags.^[1] As a result, some Russian and Belarusian chess players play under the FIDE flag. Others have switched to different chess federations.
• Players of Taiwan play under the Chinese Taipei flag.

There will be 13 rounds according to the Swiss system. Time controls will be as follows -

• 15 minutes set as default time on the clock for each player.
• 10 seconds added on the clock of each player each time the clock is pressed starting from the first move, except for the case of making a claim.
• Additional time can be given as compensation of opponent either violated any rule or made an invalid claim. The time added, if any, shall be decided by the arbiter.

Players are given points according to their performance in the tournament. Points are awarded as follows -

• 1 Point awarded for each victory
• 0.5 Point awarded for each draw scored
• No point awarded for a loss

At the end, the players are ranked according to the total points they scored in the tournament in descending order.

When 2 or more players are tied for the same rank but not rank 1, the tie should be broken without any tie-breaker by Buchholz System. If there is still a tie, their average FIDE rating for Rapid games shall be taken into account, the player with higher rating shall receive a higher rank. If there is still a tie, the players shall, via a direct encounter in tie-breaker, end the tie. If even that game ends in a draw, drawing of lots shall remain the final solution to break the tie.^[2]

When 2 are tied for the first place, no method mentioned above shall be used. In such a case, a Blitz chess match shall be played with time control 3 minutes default clock time + Increment of 2 seconds per move to determine the winner. If it ends in a draw, one sudden death game shall determine the winner.

When more than 2 are tied for the first place, no method mentioned above shall be used. In such a case, a single elimination knockout tournament shall be played between all the players tied for the first position, which means each player has to play any other and the person who loses the game will be eliminated. For example, if 4 players are tied, there are 2 games played between 2 players, the losers of each game shall be eliminated and the winners of each game shall play another knockout. The process shall continue until all but 1 player is left, and the player is awarded rank 1. All other players are awarded rank as per the criteria mentioned above for 2 or more players tied for the same rank but not rank 1.

Finally, the person who scored rank 1 is given the title World Rapid Chess Champion.

To be declared on December 30, 2025