The tour was designed to promote competitive chess by including all of the top players and then-World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a single circuit.
With the combination of several established tournaments, the Grand Chess Tour aimed to create a large prize pool that would be attractive to the players and media alike.
The point breakdown and prize money for each classical tournament is: In 2015, the Grand Chess Tour invited the top-10 players in the world ranked by the January 2015 FIDE rating list.
[4] Wesley So and Michael Adams were selected to participate in the Sinquefield Cup and the London Chess Classic, respectively.
[10][11] On February 11, 2016, the GCT announced it was adding two rapid/blitz tournaments for 2016,[12] sponsored by Colliers International France (Paris), and Your Next Move (Leuven).
[13] For 2016, an initial roster of eight players was created based upon the rules published on the GCT website.
The Initial Roster consisted of the three top finishers in the 2015 GCT and the next five highest players by rating will be the average of each monthly FIDE supplement from February through December inclusive, as well as the live ratings after the 2015 London Chess Classic.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was subsequently added to the roster as the GCT Wild Card Player for all 4 events.
World Champion Magnus Carlsen declined participation in the two classic events but competed as a wild card in the rapid/blitz tournaments held in both Paris and Leuven.
For the Sinquefield Cup, Vladimir Kramnik had to withdraw due to health issues and was replaced by Peter Svidler.
[18] Vladimir Kramnik declined to participate in the 2017 GCT, citing a busy summer schedule.
[19][20] On July 5, Garry Kasparov agreed to join the St. Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament as a wildcard.
After tying for fourth place, Fabiano Caruana qualified for the final event by beating Wesley So in a playoff 1½–½.
As in 2018, the top 4 players after the 7 events qualified for the GCT Finals at the London Chess Classic.
Due to travel restrictions, not all Tour players competed in both classical tournaments, and there ended up being 19 wildcards.