Wesley So

A scramble at the end of last year for the last two slots in the Candidates Tournament led to changes in the rules for qualification.The Candidates Tournament to select a challenger for the World Chess Championship will be held in April in Toronto. While spots in the tournament are always competitive, changes to the selection process resulted in some players’ finding loopholes to qualify, leading to a scramble at the end of last year. The ensuing chaos led to criticism of the International Chess Federation, the game’s governing body, also known as FIDE. In response, the federation made rule changes to balance out the selection process.Six of the eight players in the Candidates Tournament were decided before December, leaving two places up for grabs and five players vying for them. One spot was for the player with the highest rating on FIDE’s list on Jan. 1 who had not already qualified. The other was for the top finisher in the 2023 FIDE Circuit, a new system that awarded points for tournaments during the year, much like in tennis or golf.In an attempt to secure the remaining slots, some players entered last-minute or obscure tournaments that FIDE had not anticipated they would participate in.The spot for the top-rated player came down to the wire.Wesley So, a grandmaster from the United States, lost out on a spot in the Candidates Tournament after grandmaster Alireza Firouzja of France overtook him by two points in the world rankings on Dec. 29.Mr. So had narrowly led Mr. Firouzja and Leinier Dominguez of the United States for much of last year. However, Mr. Dominguez announced that he intended to play another tournament in December to try to overtake Mr. So. FIDE, realizing that Mr. Dominguez meant to play in the United States, where he had already played most of his tournaments, issued a “clarification,” saying that Mr. Dominguez must play in another country for the points to be counted.In an interview with The New York Times last month, Emil Sutovsky, the chief executive of FIDE, who is also a grandmaster, admitted that there was “ambiguity” in how FIDE had posted its regulations for determining the highest ranking.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More