Titled Cup Followed Up By Titled Tuesday Grand Prix In 2025
One thing we can all agree on is that chess fans and players around the world love Titled Tuesdays. The weekly blitz event for titled players is where everyone can regularly see stars like GM Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen sparring.
Now, we're excited to announce that the Titled Cup, the year-long leaderboard for Titled Tuesdays, will evolve into the Titled Tuesday Grand Prix!
The stakes will be even higher for this updated version of the leaderboard competition. This year, the Titled Tuesday Grand Prix will be the only qualification path for players to face the big guns in the annual Speed Chess Championships.
The Titled Tuesday Grand Prix will feature five categories: Open, Women, Youth, Girls, and Seniors. The top players of the Open and Women's leaderboards will qualify straight to the Speed Chess Championship and Women's Speed Chess Championship, respectively. The top five players in each of the other three categories will get a share of the Grand Prix's $15,000 prize fund.
The 2025 Titled Tuesday Grand Prix will be an abbreviated cycle starting from the first Tuesday of the year, January 7, through the events of May 27. After that, the Titled Tuesday Grand Prix will run in a year-long format from 2025 until mid-2026.
Last year, we enjoyed one of the most exciting editions of the Speed Chess Championship (SCC) yet. Among the four players who went to Paris for the Finals was GM Hans Niemann, who qualified for the SCC knockouts via the Titled Cup leaderboard. Niemann's matches against Carlsen and Nakamura in Paris were among the most-watched battles of the year!
But the action didn't stop there. Throughout the year, a thrilling battle between Titled Tuesday king Nakamura and world number-one Carlsen took place. The Norwegian, who played less regularly than Nakamura, made strides to catch up to the leader. However, not even Carlsen could dethrone Hikaru, who took the top spot and a $10,000 prize.
The Women's leaderboard was even more uncertain, with chess queen GM Alexandra Kosteniuk having to wait until December 31 to celebrate her first-place finish, just half a point ahead of GM Aleksandra Goryachkina.
Who do you think will be the biggest name to finish in the top eight in 2025 to qualify for this year's Speed Chess Championships? Let us know in the comment section below!
