World Rapid & Blitz Championships Announcement: registration closes on 10th of November

The registration for 2016 World Rapid & Blitz Championships in Doha (Open & Women) closes on 10th of November!

The FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships (Open and Women) will take place in Doha (Qatar) from 25th of December (arrival) to 31st of December (departure).

The Rapid event will be held over three days (26-28th December) at a time control of 15min+10s and the Blitz Championships will continue during next two days (29-30th December) at a time control of 3min+2s.

The total prize fund for the Open tournament is $400,000 with $40,000 for the winner of each championship and $80,000 in Women Championships with $10,000 for the winner of each championship.

World Champion Magnus Carlsen, former World Champion Viswanathan Anand and other top players including Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura have already confirmed their participation. Former Women’s World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk and most of the top women players including Humpy Koneru, Anna Muzychuk, Valentina Gunina will take part in women's championships.

All players rated at least 2500 in any of the FIDE rating lists (Standard, Blitz or Rapid) and all women players rated at least 2200 from January 2016 to October 2016 are eligible to participate in the FIDE World Blitz & Rapid Championships. The FIDE World Blitz & Rapid Championships are open to all the National Champions representing their National Chess Federation regardless of their title or rating.

Applications have to be sent by the national federations only.

The World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships organized by the FIDE, QATAR OLYMPIC COMMITTEE and QATAR CHESS ASSOCIATION.

In recent years, Qatar proved the exceptional ability and outstanding facilities to host hundreds of international and regional sports events. In the coming few years, Qatar will be hosting many world class events along with the UCI RWC 2016; such as World Bowling Championships 2016, World Artistic Gymnastics Championships 2018, Athletics World Championships 2019, and FIFA World Cup 2022.

Official tournament website 

Page for registration