FIDE Grand Prix

FIDE Grand Prix is a biennial series of chess tournaments, organized by FIDE and its commercial partner Agon. Each series consist of four or six chess tournaments, which form part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship or Women's World Chess Championship.

The Grand Prix was first played in 2008. The initial Grand Prix saw Magnus Carlsen withdraw (along with Michael Adams) due to changed incentives toward the World Chess Championship.

The first two Grand Prix consisted of six tournaments, but the 2014-2015 edition had only four. Often there were problems finding sponsors and many announced host cities were changed eventually (to date, 8 of the 16 locations have been changed). The 2014-15 edition was announced late, with only 4 events instead of 6, reduced the prizes per event to about 1/3 of the previous amounts, and had no money for overall placings (as in the earlier editions). In 2014-2015, four top 10 players (Carlsen, Anand, Topalov and Aronian) didn't participate, with the small prize funds and organizational uncertainty being the usual reasons given.

The winner of the Grand Prix (and sometimes lower finishers) gets entry to the Candidates Tournament. The winner of the women's cycle is directly qualified to a championship match. The women's edition has been dominated by Chinese GM Hou Yifan, though she withdrew from the most recent event.

The format will change for the 2017 Grand Prix with 24 players taking part in the cycle. Four events will take place with 18 players in competing in each nine-round Swiss tournament. The events were originally announced to take place on Oct. 12 to 23, 2016; Feb. 10 to 21, 2017; May 11 to 22, 2017; and July 5 to 16, 2017. On May 26, 2016, Agon CEO Ilya Merenzon hoped to announce the venues within the next two weeks. After the FIDE meetings at the 42nd Chess Olympiad in Baku in early September 2016, Peter Doggers of Chess.com reported that the Grand Prix has been postponed until 2017.

The top two finishers will qualify for the 2018 Candidates Tournament.

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