Notice Tournament Info

Selection Criteria for Japan Chess Championship 2026

20-11-2025
Takafumi_Yamada

We hereby publish the selection criteria for seeded players for the Japan Chess Championship 2026, as outlined below.

There are two changes from the 2025 criteria:

  1. Seed eligibility is limited to players holding Japan chess nationality (new).

  2. For regional qualifiers:

    • When calculating the number of seeds allocated, fractions will now be rounded down (previously rounded up).

    • The local quota will be assigned as one of the above seeds, regardless of the region in which the qualifier is held.
      (Previously, for qualifiers held outside the Kanto region, one additional local quota was granted on top of the calculated number of seeds.)

 

Selection Criteria for Japan Chess Championship 2026

We will select the qualifiers for Japan Chess Championship 2026 according to the following criteria.

 

  1. Top 5 players from Japan Chess Championship 2025, and top female, top senior and top junior player.
  2. Top player in Japan Rapid Chess Championship 2025
  3. Top 5 players in Japan Chess Classic 2025
  4. Top 2 players in Japan Women’s Chess Championship 2025
  5. Top 2 players in Japan Senior Chess Championship 2025
  6. Top 5 players in Japan Open 2025
  7. Chess Olympiad 2024 members and Chess Olympiad 2026 nominated members
  8. Top 20 players listed on January 2026 National Rating list
    (Active players only. (Note 1) Excluding qualified players from above A through G)
  9. One player for every 8 participants (including the players who had already qualified) at all qualifying tournaments held in 2026 (rounded down)
    – One player for every 6 participants will be qualified outside the Kanto region.
    – If a qualified player declines, there will be no substitution.
    – One of the aforementioned seed rights can be allocated to a participant under the “Jimotowaku.” (Note 2)
  10. Top 2 players in Japan Collegiate Chess Championship 2026
  11. Top players in Japan Youth Chess Championship 2026 in each U18, U16, and U14 category, with a win rate of 50% or higher

 

Notes

Note 1: Active Player – A player who has updated their national standard rating at least four times in the last 2 years between January 2024 and December 2025.
Note 2: Jimotowaku – A person deemed appropriate as a district representative by the organizer of each regional qualifier.

 

If there is a discrepancy between English and Japanese, the Japanese version prevails.