The Candidates Qualification System

The Candidates Tournament, where eight of the best players compete for a chance to challenge the crown. When designing a system like this, there needs to be a tradeoff between variance and strength. Simply choosing the eight highest rated players would be flawed because then there would be no incentive for them to play and risk their rating. So we have a mix of qualification methods like FIDE Circuit, Grand Swiss, and World Cup. A player not in the elite has a chance to participate this way. Whether this should be the way can be debated.

The qualification methods are clear cut. Except for one. The ratings spot.

The rating spot goes to the highest rated played from August 2025 - January 2026. Since Carlsen didn't have the required minimum 40 games and didn't want to play the Candidates anyway, the spot would go to the no. 2 rated player (Nakamura).

The ratings spot is messy because it incentivizes players to sit on their rating and avoid strong players. Which is just what Nakamura did.

The State Championship and Open Tour

At the end of August 2025, Nakamura embarked on a tour of state championships and opens to qualify for rating to the Candidates. The problem was that Nakamura needed to play 40 games in this timespan as that was the requirement.

The reaction was mixed. The chess world generally remained silent, afraid of Nakamura unleashing his online horde on anyone who had the audacity to critiz. There were some notable players who disapproved of Nakamura's actions like Niemann and Nepomniachtchi.

Nepomniachtchi: "That he is a good chess player, no doubt, but I think that his rating does not reflect his objective strength at all. He stopped playing classical chess a very long time ago, well more than a year even though, unlike Ding, he will not be removed from the rating list because he played, if I'm not mistaken he played, one tournament in Stavanger, played not so badly there.

Well, it's such a tournament where if you make a draw then you play Armageddon, so draws do not bother anyone, and after that he played tournaments which well cause some disgust in me, becoming an honorary champion of different U.S. states. He still has like 47 or 48 states left to visit to complete the collection."

Ian Nepomniachtchi, Chess with Mustreader Interview

Niemann: "Well, I think that if you see a lot of Hikaru's rhetoric when speaking about Emil and FIDE, he's he's quite aggressive and quite harsh and not as let's say professional in his description. So, his animosity towards them is is is no secret. In my opinion, he sort of is making a mockery of them. It's obviously unfortunate. To me, it's it's all just an unfortunate joke, but you don't want such a serious thing to be made a joke, because this is the World Championship we're discussing, right?"

Niemann: "Well, I think the most important point is that Hikaru is actually sacrificing his level by playing these tournaments. He's not going to perform well in the candidates. I personally don't think... This is the worst preparation. And if you look at his games, he's actually struggling against these weaker players. There were moments like he's like losing or drawing, you know, the games weren't like smooth sailing. So unless by some miracle he snaps into form, he's very very far from, I would consider Sindarov more of a favorite than Hikaru because although he has this super high inflated rating, I don't consider him a favorite."

Hans Niemann, Dina Belenkaya Interview

However, the tour was received with universal acclaim by Nakamura's online herd who praised Hikaru for 'giving back to the community' and blessing the tournament participants with his presence. It was regrettable that none of the players had the chance to actually win their local tournaments, but that was a sacrifice that Hikaru was willing to make.

Nakamura scored some big, big victories:

August-September: 2025 Louisiana State Championship, 70th Iowa Open Championship
October: 025 Maritime Chess Festival Open Championship
November: 1st Annual Washington Dulles Open

Nakamura won 8 rating points for the first two tournaments as FIDE had a rule stating that opponents who are rated more than 400 points below a player would be treated as if they were rated 400 points lower. This means they would have higher 'virtual ratings' so that GMs playing in opens would at least get some points for beating very low rated players.

But FIDE discovered multiple strong players were taking advantage of the rule by deliberating playing players who were far lower rated than them to score easy points. So they cut the rule at the beginning of October.

Just to be clear.

The rule is not about Hikaru. He did trigger it, but when we started to dig, it turned out there were at least five players more of 2650+ level who, in 2024-25 regularly played events with a string of very low-rated opponents, abusing 400-points rule.

It was not occassional 450 or 500 points difference - but 700-800, often close to 1000 points. And not a single game like that per event, but rather most of them.

Hundreds of events were examined. Dozens of hours spent. Several solutions were reviewed, and it passed through three different panels before getting approved. I do think it is fair and balanced."

Emil Sutovsky, FIDE CEO Tweet, 29 Sep 2025

After FIDE cut the rule, Nakamura lost 6 points in the next two tournaments.

Charlize Van Zyl: I want to get straight into this. Your qualification, you dubbed the Mickey Mouse tournaments as well and the internet was quite interested in this path that you took. Now that you're sitting here at the candidates, do you think you've validated that path?

Nakamura: I mean I think there are a couple of things. First of all, it was the easiest path to qualify. Obviously, I could have played a tournament like the US Championship and got in the games as well. But at the end of the day, the rules were what they were. And I think I was pretty vocal that I think the rules should be changed. I think that if you look at previous candidates tournaments, there were certain requirements. For example, you had to play either the Grand Swiss or the World Cup. I've said it very clearly in terms of the reason why those why those randomly vanished. I think everybody all already knows. I don't need to state it again. But it was just a matter of taking the easiest path. And so, yeah, it's great to be here and really just looking forward to the event.

Nakamura Pre-Candidates, Charlize Van Zyl Interview

In July 2024, Nakamura reached 2802 and became the no.2 player in the world. Nakamura didn't touch a physical piece in a classical game from that point on till April 2025 in the The American Cup, nine months later. He scored 2 wins and 6 draws. Then he played at Norway Chess in July scoring 2 wins, 1 loss and 7 draws (5 draws in under 40 moves - this is due to the format where a classical draw leads to an Armageddon playoff). He maintained his rating at 2807 here.

From July 2024 till the Candidates, he only played 18 rated classical games.

He only scored 4 wins against elite players in the whole period between July 2024 and March 2026.

Multiple people earned the #2 rating at some point in their careers (MVL, So, Alireza, Nepo, Ding).

They are no longer there.

They are no longer there because they continued playing.

Amount of Classical Games Played Per Year. Data from FIDE. Note: Nakamura's State Championship and Open Tour is not included.

Limiting classical play doesn't just help Nakamura, it also affects others.

If Nakamura had continued playing, then Caruana might have gotten the no. 2 rating spot. So Caruana would not need to qualify through the 2024 FIDE Circuit. This would've opened a space for someone else like Erigaisi who was 2nd in the 2024 FIDE Circuit.

It's possible that Nakamura could've maintained his rating, but we don't know this and cannot assume this. People's skill must be judged on their current results, not by past achievements and not by 'guessing' that they would be at a particular level.

Limiting classical games to only 18 in nearly 2 years allows someone to sit on their rating.

Same goes for Carlsen who has only played 12 games against players rated above 2600 since October 2024

18 games and 4 wins in nearly 2 years is too few to justify a ratings spot inclusion. Maybe they kept it to leave the door open for Carlsen and maybe even Nakamura considering his brand worth. Brand = sponsors.

FIDE should scrap the rating spot for fairness.

Rating decay should be implemented to stop people from abusing the system by hogging their rating.