MVL, Pragg, Caruana and Aronian
The Grand Chess Tour Finals will make their long-awaited return in 2025, six years after the previous edition. From 28 September to 3 October, São Paulo will host the event at the World Trade Center, marking the first time that the Finals are staged in South America.
Four players qualified through their results in the regular season: Maxime Vachier-LaGrave, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian. They will be competing not only for prestige but also for an additional prize purse of $350,000.
The Finals will be organised as knockout matches, with each contest involving two classical games, two rapid games and four blitz games. All games must be played to completion, regardless of whether the outcome of the match has already been determined. The different time controls will test the players’ adaptability across multiple formats.
The time limits are calibrated to reflect the nature of each discipline.
- The classical games will be played with 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes for the remainder of the game, plus a 30-second increment from the start.
- In rapid games, each player will have 25 minutes with a 10-second increment.
- Blitz games will be played at 5 minutes per side with a 2-second increment.
The scoring system has been designed to give classical games greater weight while still ensuring that rapid and blitz games can influence the outcome:
- Classical games: 6 points for a win, 3 points for a draw, 0 for a loss
- Rapid games: 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw, 0 for a loss
- Blitz games: 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 for a loss
With a total of 28 points available in each match, at least 15 points will be required to advance.
Schedule
- Semifinals: 28-30 September
- Finals: 1-3 October
The São Paulo event will also mark the tenth anniversary season of the Grand Chess Tour, which was founded in 2015 by Garry Kasparov. The 2025 edition of the tour featured five regular season events, from which the top four players qualified for the Finals. The overall prize fund for the season amounts to $1.6 million, of which $350,000 is reserved for the concluding stage.
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The Finals are hosted in partnership with Xeque and Mate under the theme Uniting Minds, a week intended to celebrate life, peace, shared values and intellectual excellence. The event is supported by the Superbet Foundation and the Saint Louis Chess Club, two nonprofit organisations recognised as leading promoters of global chess education.
