The FIDE Grand Prix 2022 was a series of three chess tournaments played between 4 February and 4 April 2022. The top two finishers – Hikaru Nakamura (winner) and Richárd Rapport (runner-up) – qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2022, which was the final qualification stage for the World Chess Championship 2023.
The first and last tournament took place in Berlin, Germany, and the second one in Belgrade, Serbia. Each player was scheduled to participate in two of three tournaments. Before the tie-break stage of the last tournament was concluded, Nakamura had already gained the score to win the series, and it was already clear that no other semi-finalist could overtake Rapport for the runner-up position.
Organization
Due to the travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, all three tournaments were initially to be played in a single city instead of playing in various cities as in previous editions.
The series was organized by World Chess. The company chose Berlin to host most of the series following a popular vote. Later it was announced that two of the three tournaments would be in Berlin, with one in Belgrade, Serbia.
Players Twenty-four players were originally invited to the Grand Prix: The players who placed third to eighth at the Chess World Cup 2021 who were not World Champion or already qualified for the Candidates. Five out of a possible six players qualified in this way, because World Champion Magnus Carlsen placed third in the World Cup. The players who placed third to eighth in the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2021 who were not World Champion or already qualified for the Candidates or Grand Prix. Six players qualified in this way. Hikaru Nakamura, nominee of the FIDE president. Daniil Dubov, organizer's nominee. The remaining eleven places were filled by the top players in the December 2021 rating list so long as they had participated in the FIDE World Cup 2021 or played at least nine games which counted in the FIDE rating lists from February to December 2021. This meant Viswanathan Anand, Wang Hao, and Veselin Topalov were not eligible because of inactivity. The list originally went down to #23 in the world, though after Wei Yi withdrew, world #25 Pentala Harikrishna also qualified this way.
Ding Liren and Dmitry Andreikin were unable to compete in the first tournament due to visa and health issues respectively, and were replaced in the first tournament by Andrey Esipenko and Radosław Wojtaszek. Ding was also unable to play in the second tournament, and Andreikin took his place. Due to personal reasons, Andreikin also withdrew from the third tournament, and was replaced by Esipenko. The replacements Esipenko and Wojtaszek were eligible to qualify for the Candidates.
The table below shows the players who qualified for the Grand Prix: SeedingNameQualifying methodRating(December 2021)World rank(December 2021) 1 Ding Liren Rating list (3rd) 27993 2 Levon Aronian Rating list (6th) 27726 3 Anish Giri Rating list (7th) 27727 4 Wesley So Rating list (8th) 27728 5 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov Rating list (9th) 27679 6 Alexander Grischuk Rating list (10th) 276410 7 Richárd Rapport Rating list (11th) 276311 8 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave Grand Swiss (6th) 276112 9 Leinier Domínguez Rating list (15th) 275215 10 Hikaru Nakamura Presidential nominee 2736 – 11 Nikita Vitiugov Rating list (19th) 273119 12 Vidit Gujrathi World Cup (5th-8th) 272722 13 Dmitry Andreikin Rating list (23rd) 272423 14 Daniil Dubov Organizer's nominee 272024 15 Pentala Harikrishna Rating list (25th) 271725 – Andrey Esipenko Presidential nominee 271426 16 Yu Yangyi Grand Swiss (4th) 271327 17 Sam Shankland World Cup (5th-8th) 270829 18 Alexei Shirov Grand Swiss (8th) 270431 19 Vladimir Fedoseev World Cup (4th) 270432 – Radosław Wojtaszek Presidential nominee 268645 20 Alexandr Predke Grand Swiss (7th) 268252 21 Grigoriy Oparin Grand Swiss (3rd) 268155 22 Vincent Keymer Grand Swiss (5th) 266474 23 Amin Tabatabaei World Cup (5th-8th) 2643108 24 Étienne Bacrot World Cup (5th-8th) 2642111
Format Each player played in two out of three of the tournaments. Each tournament had 16 players, and had a two-stage format.
In the first stage, the players were divided into four pools of four, and the players in each pool played a double round-robin mini-tournament. The four winners of the pools progressed to the second stage. In the second stage, the four pool winners played a knock-out tournament, consisting of semi-finals and a final. Both the semi-finals and final consisted of 2 classical time limit games, plus tie-breaks if required.
Players received Grand Prix points according to their finishing position in each tournament. The two players with the most Grand Prix points qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2022.
Time controls and tie-breaks The time control for classical games was 90 minutes for 40 moves, plus an extra 30 minutes after move 40. There was also an increment of 30 seconds per move from move 1.
In the pool stage, if there was a tie for first, the tied players played tie-breaks. In the knockout stage, tie-breaks were played if the match was tied after the 2 regular time limit games. In both stages, two-way or three-way tie-breaks took the following format: Players played two rapid chess games at 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. In the case of a three-way tie, a single round-robin was played. If players were still tied, they played two blitz chess games at 3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move. In the case of a three-way tie, a single round-robin was played. If players were still tied, a single armageddon chess game was played to decide the winner, in which black was declared the winner if the game was drawn. The time limit was 5 minutes for white, 4 minutes for black, and a 2 second per move increment from move 61. In the case of a three-way tie, lots were drawn to determine the players, and the loser of the lot shared second place with the loser of the Armageddon game.
In the case of a four-way tie, the players were randomly divided into pairs by drawing of lots and each pair played a two-player tie-break by the above method. The two tie-break winners then played a tie-break by the above method, while the losers shared third and fourth place in the pool.
Grand Prix points Grand Prix points were awarded as follows: Round Grand Prix points Winner 13 Runner-Up 10 Semi-final loser 7 2nd in pool 4 3rd in pool 2 4th in pool 0
In other words, the top three players in each pool earned 7, 4, and 2 points, respectively, and 3 additional points were awarded for winning a semifinal or final.
The Grand Prix points for pool placings took into account tie-breaks played to determine first place. Players tied for other places, including players who were still tied after tie-breaks had decided first place, shared Grand Prix points.
If players finished tied on Grand Prix points, the following tie-breaks were applied, in order: number of tournament first-place finishes; number of tournament second-place finishes; number of points scored in regular time limit games; number of wins in regular time limit games; drawing of lots.
Prize money The prize money for each event was €150,000 which was awarded as follows: Round Prize money Winner €24,000 Runner-Up €18,000 Semi-finalist €12,000 2nd in pools €9,000 3rd in pools €7,000 4th in pools €5,000
In other words, each player received €5,000, Grand Prix points earned in the pool were worth an additional €1,000, and Grand Prix points earned in a semi-final or final were worth an additional €2,000.
Tournament 1 - Berlin, Germany The first tournament was held in Berlin, Germany from 4–17 February. Due to health and visa issues, Dmitry Andreikin and Ding Liren were replaced with Andrey Esipenko and Radoslaw Wojtaszek, respectively. Hikaru Nakamura won the first leg with Levon Aronian as the runner-up.
Round-robin stage
The double round-robin stage had the six rounds of standard time control games on 4–7, 9, and 10 February with tie-breaks on 11 February. Players in bold advanced to the knockout stage.
Pool A {| class="wikitable" |- !Rank !Player !RatingDecember 2021 !colspan="2"|NAK !colspan="2"|ESI !colspan="2"|GRI !colspan="2"|BAC !Total Points |- |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 1||align="left"| |2736 |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | 1||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | 1 || style="background:black; color:white" | ½ | ½|| style="background:black; color:white" | ½ | 4 |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 2||align="left"| |2714 | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| 0 |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | ½ ||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | 1||style="background:black; color:white"| 1 | 3.5 |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 3||align="left"| |2764 | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| 0 | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | 1||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | 3 |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 4|| align="left" | |2642 | ½ ||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | 0||style="background:black; color:white"| 0 | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| 0 |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | 1.5
Pool B {| class="wikitable" |- !Rank !Player !RatingDecember 2021 !colspan="2"|RAP !colspan="2"|WOJ !colspan="2"|FED !colspan="2"|OPA !Total Points !R1 !R2 !Tiebreak Points |- |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 1||align="left"| |2763 |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | ½|| style="background:black; color:white" | 0 | 1|| style="background:black; color:white" | 1 | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ |3.5 | style="background:black; color:white" | 1 | style="background:white; color:black" | ½ |1.5 |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 2||align="left"| |2686 | 1|| style="background:black; color:white" | ½ |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | ½|| style="background:black; color:white" | ½ | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ |3.5 | style="background:white; color:black" | 0 | style="background:black; color:white" | ½ |0.5 |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 3||align="left"| |2704 | 0|| style="background:black; color:white" | 0 | ½|| style="background:black; color:white" | ½ |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | 1|| style="background:black; color:white" | 1 |3 | colspan="2" | -
|- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 4||align="left"| |2681 | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | 0||style="background:black; color:white"| 0 |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| |2 | colspan="2" | -
Pool C {| class="wikitable" |- !Rank !Player !RatingDecember 2021 !colspan="2"|ARO !colspan="2"|GUJ !colspan="2"|DUB !colspan="2"|KEY !Total Points |- |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 1||align="left"| |2772 |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | 1||style="background:black; color:white"|½ | ½|| style="background:black; color:white" | ½ | 1||style="background:black; color:white"|1 | 4.5 |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | =2||align="left"| |2727 | ½|| style="background:black; color:white" | 0 |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | 1||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | 3 |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | =2|| align="left" | |2720 | ½||style="background:black; color:white"|½ | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| 0 |style="background:lightgray" colspan="2"| | 1|| style="background:black; color:white" | ½ |3 |- align="center" style="background:white; color:black" | 4|| align="left" | |2664 | 0||style="background:black; color:white"| 0 | ½||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ | ½|| style="background:black; color:white" |0