Hikaru Nakamura: Interplanetary Galactic Total World Chess Championship
The chess world has a World Chess Championship 2026, where Gukesh will battle with the winner of Candidates 2026. It also has a World Rapid & Blitz Championships that will take place in December. There used to be a Fisher Random / Freestyle / Chess960 World Championship as well.
Now the chess world will have a new Total World Chess Championship format. Norway Chess launches New World Championship format in 2026, approved by FIDE, and titled Total World Chess Championship. It will consist of four events each year and crown a combined champion across three disciplines – Fast Classic, Rapid, and Blitz chess. See what is Fast Classic here
Hikaru Nakamura, who is now on his Road to Candidates mission in an attempt to qualify for a World Championship match with Gukesh and a shot at the title, published a highly critical video of the Total World Chess Championship. The video titled “Interplanetary Galactic Total World Chess Championship”
15.10 Total World Chess Championship announced
15.10 Reuters: Norway Chess gets approval for combined Total World Chess Title
15.10 Indian Express: Total Chess will be the fourth World Chess Championship
15.10 Two players from the Total World Chess Championship qualify for Candidates
15.10 Brian Karen: “There are tours within tours, finals after finals…”
15.10 Hans Niemann, “There has never been a better time to be a chess professional, kudos to FIDE”
15.10 Anish Giri, “Very messy”
16.10. Hikaru Nakamura, “Interplanetary Galactic Total World Chess Championship”
Nakamura quotes
On fast classical: “Counting games of 45 minutes as classical… I am not gonna lie, I am really confused. I do not think 45 minutes chess is classical chess, I do not think it will ever be. I do not understand why they are counting this for classical ratings, but apparently they are.”
On looking for the Total chess player: “This feels like a lot of fluff, trying to start something. In a lot of ways this reminds me of Freestyle chess, it feels like total fluff. […] Looking for the Total chess player? I am gonna be honest, we already have a Total chess player. That player is Magnus Carlsen. When he was playing chess seriously from 2015 to 2020, he dominated the Grand Chess Tour, which is classical, rapid and blitz.”
On the purpose: “If the purpose [of the Total Chess World Championship] is for top players to make money, it is positive for the top players. But as far as chess itself, I am going to say that this is not that positive is because it is further going to confuse the chess audience and fragment the audience even further. There are already far too many tournaments. And I am not overreacting, there is a cannibalization for viewership.”
On the Grand Chess Tour: “Let’s be honest, is there a difference between the Total Chess World Championship and the Grand Chess Tour?”
More quotes coming, see the video for the full Hikaru Nakamura analysis of the Total Chess World Championship