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FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships 2025: All you need to know about the event
Hikaru Nakamura is among the top ranked players taking part in the event. Image: X / @FIDE_chess
The 2025 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships are all set to take place in London from 10-16 June. The event will bring together top chess players from around the world to compete in two exciting formats - Rapid and Blitz. Fans can expect some exciting matches as the world's top players are also participating in the event.
Venue and format
The tournament is being held at Novotel London West in Hammersmith, West London. The championships are divided into two events - Rapid (11–13 June), which will be a 12-round Swiss tournament and Blitz (14–15 June), a round-robin pool followed by a knockout stage.
Players will have 15 minutes per game with a 10-second increment per move in the Rapid section, and 3 minutes per game with a 2-second increment per move in the Blitz section.
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What is the prize pool?
A total prize fund of €500,000 (Rs 4 crore) is up for grabs with €310,000 (Rs 3 crore) for the Rapid event and €190,000 (Rs 1.8 crore) for the Blitz event.
Team composition
The World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships is a team event. Here's how the team composition should look.
Teams must have 6 to 9 players
Each team must include 1 female player and 1 amateur player
Each match is played on six boards
Teams can include players from different federations and clubs
Who is playing?
A total of 54 teams are participating, with 116 Grandmasters among them. The big favourites are WR Chess Team, winners of both the 2023 Rapid and 2024 Blitz titles.
WR Chess is led by GM Jan Gustafsson and features top stars like Hikaru Nakamura , Alireza Firouzja, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Former women's world champions Hou Yifan and Alexandra Kosteniuk are also part of the team. The team's amateur board will be taken by Wadim Rosenstein, who is also the owner of the team.
As far as India is concerned, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand is taking part as part of the Freedom team. GM Arjun Erigaisi, GM Nihal Sarin, GM Vidit Gujrathi, GM Pentala Harikrishna, GM Pranav Venkatesh, GM Leon Luke Mendonca, GM Srinath Narayanan, IM Divya Deshmukh, Atharvaa P Tayade, Sarbartho Mani and Aryaman Ganguly are other Indians in the tournament.
How to watch?
The matches will be streamed live with commentary by GMs Daniel King and Jovanka Houska on FIDE's YouTube channel. Fans who want to watch in person can buy tickets at tickets.fide.com.
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