The 2025 Atomic World Championship

82 participants took the challenge of joining this year’s AWC, which, despite a few last-minute forfeits, is a record! Thank you to all the Lichess moderators who offered some of their time to assist in the lengthy registration and screening process.

I remind each participant that they have to read the tournament rules (in this blogpost or on Chronatog's website). Please message @AtomicWorldChamp for any question you might have about the tournament, and issues you might have while scheduling or playing your match. As always, all the necessary information will be available on the Atomic WC team.
I insist on the importance of scheduling matches properly. As soon as you know your next opponent, you must contact them and tell them when you are available to play, and offer 3 different match times using the UTC time format. Once a match time is agreed, indicate when on the 2025 AWC Rounds and Results forum thread.

Pairings and tournament bracket

As a result of this higher number of participants, two rounds will be played before the top 64 group stage can start. Here are the pairings of those two qualifying rounds, which start on September 3rd, and only involve the participants seeded from #57 to #82:
https://challonge.com/2025awctop64qualifier

The top 64 group stage will start on September 17th, once the top 64 qualifiers are completed. Here are the pairings:
https://challonge.com/2025awc

Matches may be scheduled and played ahead of time if the pairings are already known, so feel free to start already!

Seeding

The pairings have been decided based on the seeding rating of the participants. The more detailed calculations and proofs can be accessed here: AWC 2025 Participants and Seeding

List of seeding adjustments:
Players with a * on their name have benefited from bonus base rating points due to past AWC top finishes.
Players with a ** on their name have had their base rating adjusted by (-50) because of peak ratings inflated by a majority of hyper games/a lack of blitz games.
Players with a *** on their name have had their seeding rating manually set by the TD, due to insufficient seeding data.
Players with a **** on their name have had their rating adjusted by the TD to prevent the same tournament performance and peak rating to be counted two AWCs in a row.
Players with a ***** on their name are the defending champion.