Updated info 2015 FIDE World Cup: Live games with analysis / Live games with chat / TCEC Stage 2 (starting soon!)
The FIDE Chess World Cup 2015 will be played in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 10 September to 4 October 2015.
It will be a 128-player knockout chess tournament. The finalists will qualify for the 2016 Candidates Tournament.
The Chess World Cup 2015 has a prize fund of 1,6 million USD. Matches consist of two games (except for the final, which consists of four).
Players have 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from the start of the game. If a match is tied after the regular games, tie breaks will be played on the next day.
1 player: World Champion – Magnus Carlsen
4 players: Semi-finalists of the Chess World Cup 2013 – Evgeny Tomashevsky, Dmitry Andreikin, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Vladimir Kramnik (details)
1 player: Women’s World Champion 2014 TBA
2 players: World Junior Champions 2013 and 2014: Yu Yangyi (details) and Lu Shanglei (details)
18 players: Rating (average of all published ratings from February 2014 to January 2015 is used) – scroll down for details
56 players: European Individual Championships 2014 and 2015 – Alexander Motylev is champion + 23 players (details) and TBA + 23 players
8 players: American Continental Chess Championship 2014 and 2015 – GM Granda Zuniga + 4 players (details) and TBA + 4 players
10 players: Asian Chess Championship 2014 and 2015 – Yu Yangyi + 5 players (details) and TBA + 5 players
3 players: African Chess Championship 2015
25 players: From zonal championships Z2.1 (5), Z2.2 (1), Z2.3 (2), Z2.4 (2), Z2.5 (2), Z3.1 (1), Z3.2 (1), Z3.3 (2), Z3.4 (2), Z3.5 (2), Z3.6 (1), Z3.7 (1), Z4.1 (1), Z4.2 (1), Z4.3 (1)
1 player: From ACP – highest-placed participant of the ACP TOUR who has not qualified with the previous criteria
2 players: FIDE president nominee
4 players: Organizer nominee
3 players: INT qualifiers
Update Jan 8, 2015: FIDE has published the Top-40 spots of the average rating list from February 2014 to January 2015, which will determine the 18 rating qualifiers and any rating reserves needed for this year’s World Cup in Baku. As of today, all players with an average rating of over 2725.00 have qualified to the World Cup 2015, either through rating or via other criteria of the event regulations.
| Name | Fed | Average |
| Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2872.5833 |
| Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2808.0000 |
| Caruana, Fabiano | ITA | 2803.6667 |
| Grischuk, Alexander | RUS | 2792.1667 |
| Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2785.0000 |
| Topalov, Veselin | BUL | 2784.5000 |
| Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2775.4167 |
| Kramnik, Vladimir | RUS | 2774.3333 |
| Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2772.0000 |
| Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | FRA | 2758.8333 |
| Giri, Anis9h | NED | 2756.9167 |
| Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | AZE | 2755.3333 |
| Gelfand, Boris | ISR | 2752.0000 |
| Dominguez Perez, Leinier | CUB | 2750.2500 |
| So, Wesley | USA | 2748.6667 |
| Adams, Michael | ENG | 2747.6667 |
| Svidler, Peter | RUS | 2747.4167 |
| Vitiugov, Nikita | RUS | 2740.8333 |
| Jakovenko, Dmitry | RUS | 2736.3333 |
| Ivanchuk, Vassily | UKR | 2735.2500 |
| Leko, Peter | HUN | 2731.0833 |
| Wojtaszek, Radoslaw | POL | 2730.0833 |
| Ding, Liren | CHN | 2726.5000 |
| Eljanov, Pavel | UKR | 2725.5000 |
| Wang, Hao | CHN | 2724.8333 |
| Harikrishna, P. | IND | 2723.5000 |
| Morozevich, Alexander | RUS | 2723.3333 |
| Bacrot, Etienne | FRA | 2722.7500 |
| Nepomniachtchi, Ian | RUS | 2722.5833 |
| Radjabov, Teimour | AZE | 2722.0833 |
| Andreikin, Dmitry | RUS | 2721.9167 |
| Ponomariov, Ruslan | UKR | 2718.5000 |
| Navara, David | CZE | 2716.2500 |
| Wang, Yue | CHN | 2715.9167 |
| Jobava, Baadur | GEO | 2715.5000 |
| Li, Chao b | CHN | 2712.8333 |
| Fressinet, Laurent | FRA | 2709.6667 |
| Naiditsch, Arkadij | GER | 2708.5000 |
| Tomashevsky, Evgeny | RUS | 2705.0833 |
| Rapport, Richard | HUN | 2704.0000 |
