These top chess players did not qualify for the Grand Swiss 2025

The FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2025 is taking place September 3 – September 16 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It will be an 11-round Swiss-system tournament and forms part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship 2026. The winner and runner-up of the tournament will earn the right to play in the Candidates Tournament 2026.

FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2025 is in the Top Chess Events Calendar for the year 2025 and also in the Asia Chess Calendar. For a complete list of events visit the main page of The Chess Calendar

The form can be filled in the actual website url.

There will be a total of 114 participants at the FIDE Grand Swiss. The invited players are the Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun, four Continental spots, four nominated by the FIDE President, five invited by the organizers, and 100 players who qualify by rating. However, only players who played at least 30 rated games counted in any of the 12 standard rating periods from December 2023 to November 2024 are eligible. This leaves a large group of top players out, including Carlsen, Anand, Le Quang Liem, Topalov, Svidler, Radjabov, etc. (see the full list below)

Players not eligible for Grand Swiss due to game requirement

Name	Nov. 2024 Rating	Games Played Dec 2023-Nov 2024
Magnus Carlsen	2831	26
Viswanathan Anand	2750	7
Le Quang Liem	2739	17
Veselin Topalov	2717	2
Wang Hao	2703	21
Teimour Radjabov	2698	22
Peter Svidler	2698	7
Dmitry Andreikin	2695	20
Rustam Kasimdzhanov	2685	19
Igor Kovalenko	2674	0
David Howell	2673	25
Peter Leko	2666	9
Boris Gelfand	2657	20
Alexander Morozevich	2655	7
Ernesto Inarkiev	2650	7
Ni Hua	2649	2
Ngoc Truong Son Nguyen	2646	10
Vladimir Malakhov	2642	12

The only way players on this list can participate in the Grand Swiss 2025 in Samarkand is if they are nominated by the FIDE President or invited by the organizers, or via the following replacement rules.

Grand Swiss Qualification Replacement Rules

• Track A (Article 2.1) Declinations
  If any of the 100 players qualified by Track A (Article 2.1) declines to participate, the unallocated spot goes to the next non-qualifying player from Track A (Article 2.1).
• Women’s World Champion Declination
  If the Women’s World Champion declines to participate, her place goes to the Vice Women’s World Champion. If the Vice Women’s World Champion declines to participate, for all further replacements Track A (Article 2.1) applies for this purpose.
• Limit on Automatic Replacements
  The automatic replacements by Track A are in force till 30th reserve player, after which players’ replacement and/or playing spots filling shall be subject to GSC decision.
• Nominated Players Declining
  If any of the players nominated by FIDE President/Continental Presidents decline to participate, the FIDE President/respective Continental President shall nominate another player.

Players qualified for the Grand Swiss 2025 via rating

Rank	Name	Nov. 2024 Rating
1	Fabiano Caruana	2805
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2802
3	Arjun Erigaisi	2799
4	Gukesh Dommaraju	2783
5	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2777
6	Alireza Firouzja	2763
7	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2755
8	Wei Yi	2753
9	Wesley So	2747
10	Leinier Domínguez	2741
11	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2740
12	Vidit Gujrathi	2739
13	Levon Aronian	2739
14	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2738
15	R Praggnanandhaa	2737
16	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2737
17	Hans Niemann	2734
18	Vincent Keymer	2733
19	Anish Giri	2733
20	Ding Liren	2728
21	Yu Yangyi	2724
22	Richárd Rapport	2721
23	Vladimir Fedoseev	2712
24	Parham Maghsoodloo	2712
25	Aravindh Chithambaram	2706
26	Vladislav Artemiev	2701
27	Ray Robson	2700
28	Samuel Sevian	2696
29	Pentala Harikrishna	2695
30	Daniil Dubov	2693
31	Alexander Grischuk	2689
32	Bogdan-Daniel Deac	2687
33	Jorden van Foreest	2687
34	Awonder Liang	2687
35	Amin Tabatabaei	2686
36	Bu Xiangzhi	2684
37	Javokhir Sindarov	2682
38	Andrey Esipenko	2682
39	Shamsiddin Vokhidov	2681
40	Alexey Sarana	2679
41	Raunak Sadhwani	2677
42	Nihal Sarin	2676
43	Haik Martirosyan	2676
44	David Navara	2674
45	Kirill Alekseenko	2673
46	Pavel Eljanov	2672
47	Sam Shankland	2672
48	David Antón Guijarro	2671
49	Thai Dai Van Nguyen	2670
50	Ivan Šarić	2668
51	Nikita Vitiugov	2668
52	Nodirbek Yakubboev	2668
53	Volodar Murzin	2664
54	Michael Adams	2662
55	Johan-Sebastian Christiansen	2661
56	Radosław Wojtaszek	2658
57	Shant Sargsyan	2655
58	Matthias Blübaum	2654
59	Frederik Svane	2654
60	Jonas Buhl Bjerre	2654
61	Grigoriy Oparin	2653
62	Kirill Shevchenko	2653
63	Ruslan Ponomariov	2653
64	Étienne Bacrot	2653
65	Max Warmerdam	2653
66	Abhimanyu Puranik	2652
67	Alexandr Predke	2652
68	Benjámin Gledura	2652
69	Rauf Mamedov	2651
70	Andrei Volokitin	2649
71	Alan Pichot	2649
72	Sanan Sjugirov	2649
73	S. L. Narayanan	2647
74	Bassem Amin	2647
75	Alexei Shirov	2646
76	Nils Grandelius	2645
77	Dmitrij Kollars	2641
78	Vasyl Ivanchuk	2640
79	Wang Yue	2640
80	Gabriel Sargissian	2640
81	Gawain Jones	2639
82	Francisco Vallejo Pons	2638
83	Ma Qun	2638
84	Aryan Chopra	2637
85	Evgeniy Najer	2637
86	Anton Korobov	2636
87	Maxim Rodshtein	2636
88	Jeffery Xiong	2636
89	Hrant Melkumyan	2636
90	Arkadij Naiditsch	2636
91	Ediz Gürel	2635
92	Li Chao	2635
93	Yuriy Kryvoruchko	2633
94	Hou Yifan	2633
95	Ivan Cheparinov	2632
96	Aydin Suleymanli	2632
97	Leon Luke Mendonca	2631
98	Daniil Yuffa	2631
99	Jaime Santos Latasa	2630
100	Rasmus Svane	2628