The 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals Preview
The 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals are fast approaching.
This is our preview of this eagerly anticipated tournament: the event format, the four players who have qualified, and everything else you need to know about the climax of the 2025 Grand Chess Tour.
Overview
The 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals will be held at the World Trade Center, São Paulo, Brazil, from Sunday, September 28, through Friday, October 3, 2025.
The tournament features the top four players from points earned across the five Grand Chess Tour events already held in 2025:
- Rapid and Blitz Poland
- Superbet Chess Classic Romania
- Rapid and Blitz Croatia
- St. Louis Rapid and Blitz
- Sinquefield Cup
The four qualified players are:
- 1st seed: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France)
- 2nd seed: Fabiano Caruana (USA)
- 3rd seed: Levon Aronian (USA)
- 4th seed: R. Praggnanandhaa (India)
These four elite grandmasters will duke it out for a share of a lucrative $350,000 prize purse, along with the prestige of being crowned the 2025 Grand Chess Tour Champion.
Prize money will be distributed as follows:
- 1st place: $150,000
- 2nd place: $100,000
- 3rd place: $60,000
- 4th place: $40,000
Previous Grand Chess Tour Winners
2025 will be the tenth edition of the Grand Chess Tour.
The honor roll of past champions is given below:
- 2015: Magnus Carlsen
- 2016: Wesley So
- 2017: Magnus Carlsen
- 2018: Hikaru Nakamura
- 2019: Ding Liren
- 2020: No winner, due to the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2021: Wesley So
- 2022: Alireza Firouzja
- 2023: Fabiano Caruana
- 2024: Alireza Firouzja
Related: How Do World Chess Champions Prepare For Matches?
Format
This will be the first time the Grand Chess Tour has featured a finals tournament since 2019. From 2021 to 2024, the championship was decided purely through the points tally across the circuit events. However, in 2025, the top four players all get the chance to claim the title in this high-pressure final tournament.
The 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals are played in a knockout format. It begins with two semifinals. The two semifinal winners will then progress to a final. Meanwhile, the two semifinal losers will contest a playoff for 3rd place.
The two semifinal matchups are as follows:
- The 1st seed (Maxime Vachier-Lagrave) plays the 4th seed (R. Praggnanandhaa).
- The 2nd seed (Fabiano Caruana) plays the 3rd seed (Levon Aronian).
Each match features:
- Two games of classical chess, with a time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, along with a 30-second increment starting from move 1.
- Two games of rapid chess, with a time control of 25 minutes, along with a 10-second increment starting from move 1.
- Four games of blitz chess, with a time control of 5 minutes, along with a 2-second increment starting from move 1.
Results in the various time controls count for different points towards the match result:
- Classical games score 6 points for a win, 3 points for a draw and 0 points for a loss.
- Rapid games score 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw and 0 points for a loss.
- Blitz games 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.
15 points are needed to secure match victory. Notably, even if one player reaches 15 points (and thus wins the match), the two players are still obligated to play out all scheduled games.
Schedule
The 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals take place over the course of six action-packed days:
- Sunday, September 28: Semifinal - classical game 1.
- Monday, September 29: Semifinal - classical game 2.
- Tuesday, September 30: Semifinal - rapid and blitz games.
- Wednesday, October 1: Final and 3rd place playoff - classical game 1.
- Thursday, October 2: Final and 3rd place playoff - classical game 2.
- Friday, October 3: Final and 3rd place playoff - rapid and blitz games.
With no rest days, it shapes up to be a gruelling schedule for the players!
The Players
1st Seed: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
The popular French grandmaster has been a model of consistency across the 2025 Grand Chess Tour, with 2nd-place finishes in both Poland and Romania helping him earn the top seeding for the São Paulo finals.
Profile:
- In his youth, Vachier-Lagrave was an extraordinary chess prodigy. He earned the grandmaster title at just 14 years of age - making him one of the youngest players in history to do so.
- Vachier-Lagrave reached a peak classical chess rating of 2819, at which point he was the #2 ranked player in the world (August 2016).
- Among his many career highlights, Vachier-Lagrave was the 2021 World Blitz Champion. He also competed strongly at the 2020-21 Candidates Tournament, securing 2nd place just ½ a point behind the winner, Ian Nepomniachtchi.
2nd Seed: Fabiano Caruana
The winner of the 2023 Grand Chess Tour has the chance to regain his title in 2025. Caruana qualified for São Paulo with a strong finish to the season, picking up a 2nd place finish at St. Louis Rapid and Blitz, immediately followed by a 1st-equal performance at the Sinquefield Cup.
Profile:
- As of writing, Caruana is the #3 ranked player in the world. He has also been consistently ranked inside the world's top 10 players for the past decade, with a peak classical rating of 2844 (October 2014).
- He won the 2018 Candidates Tournament, which allowed him to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the 2018 World Chess Championship. Caruana tied the classical portion of the match, and was only defeated in the rapid tiebreaks.
- Caruana has competed at every Candidates Tournament ever since, and has already qualified for the 2026 Candidates Tournament.
Related: Learn to play the Ruy Lopez with Fabiano Caruana - Navigating the Ruy Lopez.
3rd Seed: Levon Aronian
Aronian has enjoyed a stellar last few months. He unexpectedly won the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tournament in Las Vegas, and followed that up with another victory at St. Louis Rapid and Blitz. At 42 years of age, Aronian is showing no signs of slowing down!
Profile:
- He has claimed numerous diverse honors throughout his chess career, including World Chess 960 Champion (2006 and 2007), as well as the 2009 World Rapid Champion and the 2010 World Blitz Champion.
- Aronian has had considerable success representing his homeland of Armenia, helping his country to gold medals at the Chess Olympiads of 2006, 2008, and 2012. He later switched federations to the United States in 2021.
- His peak classical rating of 2830 makes him the fourth-highest rated player of all time, behind only Carlsen, Kasparov, and Caruana.
4th Seed: R. Praggnanandhaa
1st-equal finishes in both Romania and at the Sinquefield Cup helped Praggnanandhaa secure his spot in São Paulo. The Indian superstar is the only member of the younger generation to qualify and will seek to claim his maiden Grand Chess Tour title.
Profile:
- Praggnanandhaa’s prodigious talents saw him become the youngest ever International Master, aged just 10 years and 10 months. He then followed that up by becoming the world’s second-youngest ever Grandmaster at 12 years and 10 months.
- He helped India win the gold medal at the 2024 Chess Olympiad, playing on board two.
- Praggnanandhaa has enjoyed a stellar 2025 so far, including victory at the prestigious Tata Steel tournament, beating out his compatriot, Gukesh Dommaraju, in a playoff.
How To Follow The Action
Expert commentary on the 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals will be provided on the St. Louis Chess Club’s YouTube and Twitch channels by Grandmasters Yasser Seirawan, Maurice Ashley, and Peter Svidler, and International Master Nazi Paikidze and Woman Grandmaster Anastasia Karlovich.
Make sure you tune in to what promises to be a memorable event. May the best player win!