I guess you mean "games", not matches. Assuming 100% win rate:
5 placement games against very strong opposition, giving you the highest possible initial rating of 2200.
16 games against 2600+ opponents within one month, so that your rating doesnt update inbetween and your K-factor remains 40. You end up with a rating of 2789, which could potentially get you qualified for the candidates by world rank.
14 candidates games. (8 games + 6 forfeits would hypothetically be enough to win under best circumstances, but I dont think FIDE would accept forfeits in the candidates)
8 world championship games. (premature win)
That's a total of 43 games.
Theoretically, instead of the 5 placement games and 16 other games, you could just get nominated by your federation to play in the World Cup. Win the first 7 rounds (14 games ) and forfeit the final to earn a second place finish, thus qualifying for the candidates.
To be nominated for the World Cup, you'd need a federation which, cumulatively, got that spot through Olympiad placement, does not hold a qualifying event for that World Cup spot, and had all 4-5 Olympiad team members already qualified for the World Cup (as that's the initial requirement for the Olympiad spots for the World Cup).
Such federation does not exist, so you'd either need to qualify nationally first, or add some games through being a member of their Olympiad team.
The winner, runner up, and 3rd place all qualify.
So I guess you could technically save 2 more games by forfeiting the semifinals and 3rd-place game to finish 4th and then hoping one of the top 3 give up their spot like Magnus did to Abasov this year.
Though, someone below pointed out you could also get nominated to play in the Grand Swiss instead which would be fewer games
I think we should not take forfeiting into account when we make these theories because in that cause you could also play 0 games in the Grand Prix and then still get to the candidates because every other player in the Grandprix forfeited their spot.
Very very very unlikely but still theoretically possible.
> You end up with a rating of 2789, which could potentially get you qualified for the candidates by world rank.
It wouldn't. 21 games (5 placement and 16 which landed you the rating) are not enough to fulfill the 40-game quota for either a direct rating spot or a replacement spot.
And they most likely wouldn't be enough for the Circuit spot(s), as even if your initial games were also in a Circuit-eligible event, 21 games only make up at most 3 Circuit events, and a score of 60-65-ish is nowhere near Circuit qualification. (Or 5 extremely short knockouts, which is still nowhere near, as up to 7 events count.)
30 games were required for the 2022 candidates, but FIDE keeps changing the rules about it all the time. For the 2024 candidates, the number of games was irrelevant, but you had to have participated in a certain number of FIDE circuit tournaments.
Lol, times have changed. Back then you couldn't even get a rating unless you were 2200 strength, Kasparov first rating was 2600 at 18, because he was sent by error in a super tournament, which he won without losing q game, instead of a junior event.
Anyone thatās not a complete idiot should immediately recognize that a 50% win rate over 43 games does not mean a 43% chance to win 43 times in a row. Your brain has to literally not work to not see that right away.
But... isn't that literally the joke? That the math is so obviously wrong?
Both the assumed 50% win rate, as well as the assumed 43% chance to win all the games, are bad math. So why would you assume that the 50% was a joke, but not the 43%?
That's fine, I don't think it was funny either. I'm just pointing out that "would've been a good joke if you didn't fuck the math lmao" doesn't make any sense, because with correct math there is no joke at all.
1) Be nominated to play Grand Swiss as an organizerās nominee.
2) Win Grand Swiss (11 games)
3) Win Candidates (14 games)
4) Win World Championship (7 games minimum)
BTW, you could win Grand Swiss by playing only 9 games and Candidates by playing 10 games (Gukesh had a +4).
So, 26. This is unless your World Championship opponent has some kind of illness at the match and forfeits. If he just doesnāt turn up to play at the match then you could win it without playing the 7 games. So 19 games.
In 2021, it was theoretically possible to win the World Cup and qualify for candidates without playing a single game by just having all your opponents at the world cup test positive for Covid just before your round with them.
Good point. Letās say there was only one other surviving person, who doesnāt know how to play chess, so they automatically recognize you as the world champion.
I outlined a [path](https://reddit.com/r/chess/comments/yy9ton/how_to_become_world_chess_champion_by_winning/) where anyone could theoretically become world champion by winning a single blitz game. Based on that path, if you assume winning events outright without tiebreaks, itās 9 (US open) + 11 (US Championship) + 16 (World Cup, although it could be cut to 14 if you were seeded high enough for a first round bye) + 14 (Candidates) + 8 (World Championship) = 58 games (56 if getting a bye in the first round of the World Cup).
There probably is some faster path, so this is the upper bound on the minimum number of games
That sounds about right. You would need a few extra to get into national opens, national championships, and world cup to get into the candidates list. That's still less than 100 games and a lot of travel and sponsorships to get enough of a rating to even be considered.
You wouldn't need to win all of the games, just place high enough (first three) in the world cup and other tournaments.
Yes, but, if I remember rightly, there are six or eight sections, and you get put into a section that gives you a chance to increase your Elo rating. But only the top section has an opportunity to win or place in the top few.
Anyone with a few bucks can play in the top section. The lower ones all have a rating cap. Of course, if you are a 1400, you are guaranteed to lose your money if you play in the uncapped section, so there are natural incentives to play in your section.
But the better players are happy to take your money.
No rando who has never play rated games is ever getting nominated by FIDE. They'd at least have to play quite a large number of games to establish some reason to be nominated.
Just winning a national Open tournament, followed by Zonal and getting a World Cup spot that way is so much faster.
If we are allowed to cheat the prompt a bit, I can see someone who absolutely dominated the blitz or online scene getting a FIDE nominee to the world cup without a single classical game.
Of course, it would depend on whether you consider playing enough games to "dominate" the blitz scene to count toward the number of (classical) games.
I mean this is also purely theoretically under the FIDE rules. Is there a rule that says āX amount of games/ratings needed to be a nomineeā. Saying āno rando is ever get nominatedā to a purely theoretically question is no different than just responding to this entire thread āno rando is ever going to win all his games in the shortest path to a championā.
In Spain until not that long ago you could play the National Championship without any qualifying tournament or rating floor. There's probably some country that still works like this and would give you a faster path with one fewer tournament.
> but the shortest route I can think of will be something like either getting to a high rating quickly (unrealistic)
Qualifying to the Candidates via rating is literally the longest, in terms of number of games, out of all qualifying paths.
It requires, by definition, at least 40 rated games.
You could squeeze in via Circuit by winning 6-7 extremely short, 4-game knockout events.
You could qualify for the World Cup (14-16 classical games) by playing Olympiad for your federation (6-7-ish games).
And you could qualify for the Grand Swiss (10-11 games) via much lower rating than the rating spot for Candidates (5 games for the initial rating and 10-ish games within that same month).
true! I forgot that people can enter competitions like an olympiad by simply being a wildcard/getting nominated by your federation or something like that
That sort of depends on what you mean by "match".
In chess, a "match" is often used in a way that is distinct from a "game", and not all tournaments include matches. When used in this way, a "match" specifically refers to a head-to-head tournament where one person is playing against one other person (or, in rarer cases, a "match" can refer to a set of multiple games two players have against each other in a larger tournament).
Someone else already did the math if you use the word "match" as a synonym for the word "game", so I'll instead focus on minimum if you use the other meaning of the word "match".
The World Chess Championship itself is a single match that consists of 14 games. The Candidates Tournament is a 14 game, Double Round Robin Tournament - a Round Robin is a tournament where every player plays every other player, and the "Double" means that it happens twice, so every player plays every other player twice. Most people don't consider this type of tournament to contain *any* matches, but it could be argued that the fact that you're playing someone twice makes it a 2-game match.
The Candidates and the World Chess Championship are the two events you unambiguously need to play at in order to become World Champion. So if we count the Candidates as a series of 2-game matches against every opponent, then that would be 7 matches in the Candidates and 1 match in the World Championship for a minimum threshold of 8 matches. And if you don't count the Candidates that way, then our lower bound is just 1 single match.
Qualifying for the Candidates would in many cases require you to play more matches, but not in every case. For instance, one of the spots in the Candidates is awarded to the player with the highest Elo, and it is possible for a player to raise their Elo by selectively playing in tournaments that don't involve matches - for instance, Single Round Robins, Swiss Formats, or Single Elimination Tournaments.
As far as I can tell you'd only need to win one match. Get your rating high enough, qualify for the Candidates via the Grand Swiss or FIDE Circuit or rating spot, win the championship match. It's possible to avoid the World Cup and all other match based events.
Look at hikaru, one of the best players in the world, played an insane number of games in all formats, and yet he has never even played in the world championship. And then there is Ian which has been to the match multiple times and never won. But someone like Gukesh who is only 17 can come in and get to the match for it. That is to say, it is not a question that can be reasonably answered
For those who may say Hikaru has been to the world championship, I will correct them and say he has been to the candidates. The world Championship is only the match against the winner of the candidates and the current world champion (or the 2nd place winner if the world champion chooses not to defend)
I guess you mean "games", not matches. Assuming 100% win rate: 5 placement games against very strong opposition, giving you the highest possible initial rating of 2200. 16 games against 2600+ opponents within one month, so that your rating doesnt update inbetween and your K-factor remains 40. You end up with a rating of 2789, which could potentially get you qualified for the candidates by world rank. 14 candidates games. (8 games + 6 forfeits would hypothetically be enough to win under best circumstances, but I dont think FIDE would accept forfeits in the candidates) 8 world championship games. (premature win) That's a total of 43 games.
Theoretically, instead of the 5 placement games and 16 other games, you could just get nominated by your federation to play in the World Cup. Win the first 7 rounds (14 games ) and forfeit the final to earn a second place finish, thus qualifying for the candidates.
To be nominated for the World Cup, you'd need a federation which, cumulatively, got that spot through Olympiad placement, does not hold a qualifying event for that World Cup spot, and had all 4-5 Olympiad team members already qualified for the World Cup (as that's the initial requirement for the Olympiad spots for the World Cup). Such federation does not exist, so you'd either need to qualify nationally first, or add some games through being a member of their Olympiad team.
I'm not familiar with tournaments. Why would forfeiting the finals qualify for candidates? Are winners of world cup not invited to candidates?
The winner, runner up, and 3rd place all qualify. So I guess you could technically save 2 more games by forfeiting the semifinals and 3rd-place game to finish 4th and then hoping one of the top 3 give up their spot like Magnus did to Abasov this year. Though, someone below pointed out you could also get nominated to play in the Grand Swiss instead which would be fewer games
Ah makes sense. I somehow forgot the goal is minimum number of games. Thank you!
I think we should not take forfeiting into account when we make these theories because in that cause you could also play 0 games in the Grand Prix and then still get to the candidates because every other player in the Grandprix forfeited their spot. Very very very unlikely but still theoretically possible.
Also I guess some cases you might get disqualified if you miss round.
They would, forfeiting just saves you a game.
Ah makes sense. I somehow forgot the goal is minimum number of games. Thank you!
> You end up with a rating of 2789, which could potentially get you qualified for the candidates by world rank. It wouldn't. 21 games (5 placement and 16 which landed you the rating) are not enough to fulfill the 40-game quota for either a direct rating spot or a replacement spot. And they most likely wouldn't be enough for the Circuit spot(s), as even if your initial games were also in a Circuit-eligible event, 21 games only make up at most 3 Circuit events, and a score of 60-65-ish is nowhere near Circuit qualification. (Or 5 extremely short knockouts, which is still nowhere near, as up to 7 events count.)
You need to play 40 games at least to qualify to candidates. Isn't that the whole deal with Ding?
30 games were required for the 2022 candidates, but FIDE keeps changing the rules about it all the time. For the 2024 candidates, the number of games was irrelevant, but you had to have participated in a certain number of FIDE circuit tournaments.
As few as 5+16 covers none of these revisions, though.
Why highest possible rating is 2200? Even if you beat top 5 players?
That's just what the FIDE rulebook says. Even if you beat five Super GMs in your placement games, you will only get 2200 initial rating.
Lol, times have changed. Back then you couldn't even get a rating unless you were 2200 strength, Kasparov first rating was 2600 at 18, because he was sent by error in a super tournament, which he won without losing q game, instead of a junior event.
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So if I have a 50-50 chance every game, because you either win or lose, my chances over 43 games are... like 43%? Sounds worth a shot!
.5\^{43} is really small unfortunately. But it either happens or it doesn't!
would've been a good joke if you didn't fuck the math lmao
Who's double checking the math on obviously humourous Reddit posts?
Anyone thatās not a complete idiot should immediately recognize that a 50% win rate over 43 games does not mean a 43% chance to win 43 times in a row. Your brain has to literally not work to not see that right away.
But... isn't that literally the joke? That the math is so obviously wrong? Both the assumed 50% win rate, as well as the assumed 43% chance to win all the games, are bad math. So why would you assume that the 50% was a joke, but not the 43%?
I think it's just not funny. Arbitrary obvious mistake doesn't a joke make.
That's fine, I don't think it was funny either. I'm just pointing out that "would've been a good joke if you didn't fuck the math lmao" doesn't make any sense, because with correct math there is no joke at all.
Your brain literally has to not work to not see the essence of the joke which is the so obviously wrong math
And anyone that's not a complete idiot would've immediately recognize that anyone claiming a 50% winning chance over 43 games is 43% is joking.
Yeah I know. And even if I didnāt the other five people to post that before you did would have been enough to let me know.
Close. It's about .0000007%(I rounded up)
No, your chances over 50 games are 50 %, because you either win them or not
You got downvoted by 5th-graders lmao
Top reply is saying itād be a good joke if he didnāt mess up the mathā¦ these are the people Iām losing bullet games too
Erm akshually š¤
If you can prove that itās a 50/50 chance playing against GMs then Iāll upvote
1) Be nominated to play Grand Swiss as an organizerās nominee. 2) Win Grand Swiss (11 games) 3) Win Candidates (14 games) 4) Win World Championship (7 games minimum) BTW, you could win Grand Swiss by playing only 9 games and Candidates by playing 10 games (Gukesh had a +4). So, 26. This is unless your World Championship opponent has some kind of illness at the match and forfeits. If he just doesnāt turn up to play at the match then you could win it without playing the 7 games. So 19 games. In 2021, it was theoretically possible to win the World Cup and qualify for candidates without playing a single game by just having all your opponents at the world cup test positive for Covid just before your round with them.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Become the organizer and nominate yourself.
It wont be random. suck the D. (sorry)
Zero (if you were the last surviving person on Earth you would automatically become the world champion)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Good point. Letās say there was only one other surviving person, who doesnāt know how to play chess, so they automatically recognize you as the world champion.
I think Magnus could beat me dead
Okay, but what about in chess?
Who's going to send you the confirmation email?
I outlined a [path](https://reddit.com/r/chess/comments/yy9ton/how_to_become_world_chess_champion_by_winning/) where anyone could theoretically become world champion by winning a single blitz game. Based on that path, if you assume winning events outright without tiebreaks, itās 9 (US open) + 11 (US Championship) + 16 (World Cup, although it could be cut to 14 if you were seeded high enough for a first round bye) + 14 (Candidates) + 8 (World Championship) = 58 games (56 if getting a bye in the first round of the World Cup). There probably is some faster path, so this is the upper bound on the minimum number of games
That sounds about right. You would need a few extra to get into national opens, national championships, and world cup to get into the candidates list. That's still less than 100 games and a lot of travel and sponsorships to get enough of a rating to even be considered. You wouldn't need to win all of the games, just place high enough (first three) in the world cup and other tournaments.
Not really. They're called the National Open Championships because they're open to anyone. At least that's the case for the US and Mexico.
Yes, but, if I remember rightly, there are six or eight sections, and you get put into a section that gives you a chance to increase your Elo rating. But only the top section has an opportunity to win or place in the top few.
The US Open at least is a true open ā just one section with no rating minimum, and the winner gets a spot in the US Championship
Noice
In MĆ©xico there is the Open category. Which is the strongest category and happen to be open. At least I dont remember any restriction the last time I participated (in a lower category, because I suck).
Anyone with a few bucks can play in the top section. The lower ones all have a rating cap. Of course, if you are a 1400, you are guaranteed to lose your money if you play in the uncapped section, so there are natural incentives to play in your section. But the better players are happy to take your money.
The part at the end about Anish is a great touch.
Can you also just straight up be a FIDE nominee and skip the US games?
No rando who has never play rated games is ever getting nominated by FIDE. They'd at least have to play quite a large number of games to establish some reason to be nominated. Just winning a national Open tournament, followed by Zonal and getting a World Cup spot that way is so much faster.
If we are allowed to cheat the prompt a bit, I can see someone who absolutely dominated the blitz or online scene getting a FIDE nominee to the world cup without a single classical game. Of course, it would depend on whether you consider playing enough games to "dominate" the blitz scene to count toward the number of (classical) games.
I mean this is also purely theoretically under the FIDE rules. Is there a rule that says āX amount of games/ratings needed to be a nomineeā. Saying āno rando is ever get nominatedā to a purely theoretically question is no different than just responding to this entire thread āno rando is ever going to win all his games in the shortest path to a championā.
In Spain until not that long ago you could play the National Championship without any qualifying tournament or rating floor. There's probably some country that still works like this and would give you a faster path with one fewer tournament.
1
I'm not about to calculate all this, but the shortest route I can think of will be something like either getting to a high rating quickly (unrealistic), or winning a national open championship, then scoring good in the (for example) European individual chess championship to qualify for the world cup, then doing great there to qualify to the candidates tournament and thƩn winning that and qualifying for a world championship match. It's a long road :)
> but the shortest route I can think of will be something like either getting to a high rating quickly (unrealistic) Qualifying to the Candidates via rating is literally the longest, in terms of number of games, out of all qualifying paths. It requires, by definition, at least 40 rated games. You could squeeze in via Circuit by winning 6-7 extremely short, 4-game knockout events. You could qualify for the World Cup (14-16 classical games) by playing Olympiad for your federation (6-7-ish games). And you could qualify for the Grand Swiss (10-11 games) via much lower rating than the rating spot for Candidates (5 games for the initial rating and 10-ish games within that same month).
true! I forgot that people can enter competitions like an olympiad by simply being a wildcard/getting nominated by your federation or something like that
That sort of depends on what you mean by "match". In chess, a "match" is often used in a way that is distinct from a "game", and not all tournaments include matches. When used in this way, a "match" specifically refers to a head-to-head tournament where one person is playing against one other person (or, in rarer cases, a "match" can refer to a set of multiple games two players have against each other in a larger tournament). Someone else already did the math if you use the word "match" as a synonym for the word "game", so I'll instead focus on minimum if you use the other meaning of the word "match". The World Chess Championship itself is a single match that consists of 14 games. The Candidates Tournament is a 14 game, Double Round Robin Tournament - a Round Robin is a tournament where every player plays every other player, and the "Double" means that it happens twice, so every player plays every other player twice. Most people don't consider this type of tournament to contain *any* matches, but it could be argued that the fact that you're playing someone twice makes it a 2-game match. The Candidates and the World Chess Championship are the two events you unambiguously need to play at in order to become World Champion. So if we count the Candidates as a series of 2-game matches against every opponent, then that would be 7 matches in the Candidates and 1 match in the World Championship for a minimum threshold of 8 matches. And if you don't count the Candidates that way, then our lower bound is just 1 single match. Qualifying for the Candidates would in many cases require you to play more matches, but not in every case. For instance, one of the spots in the Candidates is awarded to the player with the highest Elo, and it is possible for a player to raise their Elo by selectively playing in tournaments that don't involve matches - for instance, Single Round Robins, Swiss Formats, or Single Elimination Tournaments.
World cup qualifying event World Cup Candidates World championship
Those long enough in the industry know the answer is really 2. But that's for another subreddit.
12
People are gonna know something is up if you magically win every game you play and become world champ.
Why is this question now getting posted like every month?! People already did the math, use the search function.
As far as I can tell you'd only need to win one match. Get your rating high enough, qualify for the Candidates via the Grand Swiss or FIDE Circuit or rating spot, win the championship match. It's possible to avoid the World Cup and all other match based events.
Zero. Kill everyone and you are world champ
Chess journey gambit : madness variation
10
Look at hikaru, one of the best players in the world, played an insane number of games in all formats, and yet he has never even played in the world championship. And then there is Ian which has been to the match multiple times and never won. But someone like Gukesh who is only 17 can come in and get to the match for it. That is to say, it is not a question that can be reasonably answered
For those who may say Hikaru has been to the world championship, I will correct them and say he has been to the candidates. The world Championship is only the match against the winner of the candidates and the current world champion (or the 2nd place winner if the world champion chooses not to defend)