Candidates Tournament 2026: Eight Players, One Shot at Gukesh, and Zero Clear Favorites

I Can't Remember a Candidates This Wide Open

The 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament starts on March 28, and I genuinely cannot figure out who's going to win this thing.

Most years, there's a shortlist. Two, maybe three players everyone expects to fight for first. But this cycle? I've talked to club friends, scrolled through r/chess threads, listened to commentary — and nobody agrees. Caruana? Pragg? Nakamura? Some people are even making serious cases for Sindarov, and the kid is 19.

The venue is gorgeous, at least — the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus. Eight players. Double round-robin. Fourteen rounds of classical chess spread over three weeks, with the winner earning the right to challenge World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju later this year.

And about Gukesh — the guy is currently sitting in last place at the Prague Masters, having lost three of his last four games. If you're one of the eight players heading to Cyprus, you have to be thinking: this might be the most beatable version of a world champion we've seen in a while.

Caruana and Pragg — the Two Everyone's Picking

Fabiano Caruana is the bookmakers' favorite at 5/2, and on paper, it makes sense. He won the 2018 Candidates. He drew all 12 classical games against Magnus Carlsen in that world championship match — came agonizingly close to the title. At 33, he's experienced, consistent, and has been near the top of the rating list for a decade.

But here's what nags at me. Caruana hasn't won a major round-robin in a while. He qualifies, he competes, he's always dangerous — but converting in these marathon events has been harder than you'd expect from someone this talented.

Then there's R. Praggnanandhaa. Pragg has arguably been the strongest classical player on the planet over the past year. He won the 2025 Tata Steel Masters, took the SuperBet Classic in Romania, and clinched the UzChess Cup. His qualification through the FIDE Circuit was a formality by that point. Nepomniachtchi and Caruana himself both named Pragg as a top pick for Cyprus.

The knock on Pragg? He's 20 and this is his first Candidates. The format is brutal — fourteen rounds of classical chess against seven of the best players alive. I remember my first long round-robin at club level and I was a wreck by round six. I can't imagine doing it with the World Championship on the line.

Nakamura Played the Iowa Open to Get Here

Photo by Heriberto Murrieta on Unsplash

OK, so Hikaru Nakamura's qualification story is genuinely one of the weirdest things I've seen in professional chess.

He qualified through the rating spot — you need the highest average rating over a six-month window while having played at least 40 rated classical games. The problem? Nakamura describes himself as a streamer more than a tournament player these days. He plays on Twitch, does YouTube, runs his chess brand. He didn't have enough rated classical games.

So what did he do? He entered the Louisiana State Championship. The Iowa Open. The Maritime Open in Canada. The Washington Dulles Open. These are regular, everyday tournaments — the kind where you might sit across from a 1600-rated amateur in round one. Nakamura showed up, crushed everyone, and collected his 40 games just in time.

Some people called it gaming the system. Others pointed out that the rules are the rules — and he still had to maintain a sky-high rating across all of them. Either way, at 38, Nakamura is the oldest player in the field, and if you've watched him play blitz on stream, you know the word "retired" doesn't come close to describing his competitive fire.

Second betting favorite at 11/4. Don't count him out.

Four Names Casual Fans Should Learn Before March 28

Half the field is made up of players most casual fans won't recognize. That's going to change fast.

**Javokhir Sindarov** (Uzbekistan, 19) won the 2025 FIDE World Cup — which is an insane accomplishment for someone his age. He's the youngest player in the Candidates and plays with an aggressive, calculating style that makes his games genuinely fun to watch. Uzbekistan is having a chess moment right now, and Sindarov is leading the charge.

**Wei Yi** (China, 27) made it as the World Cup finalist. You might remember his game against Bruzon Batista in 2015 — a queen sacrifice at age 15 that went viral and got called an "immortal game." He's been one of China's top players for years and finally has his shot at the biggest stage.

**Andrey Esipenko** (23) beat Magnus Carlsen when he was a teenager at Wijk aan Zee 2021, which remains one of the most talked-about results of the decade. He qualified through third place at the World Cup. Quietly dangerous — the kind of player who can beat anyone when he's in form.

**Matthias Bluebaum** (Germany, 27) is the Grand Swiss runner-up and probably the least discussed player in the field. I think that might actually work in his favor — nobody's going to over-prepare for him, and he's solid enough to cause problems for anyone on a good day.

Giri's Maybe-Last Dance

And then there's Anish Giri. The internet's favorite chess meme. The guy who drew so many games that "Giri draw" became its own genre of chess humor. There's a reason his social media bio once basically leaned into it.

But here's what people forget — Giri won the 2025 Grand Swiss to qualify, and he did it by winning games, not drawing them. He's been playing some of the best chess of his career over the past year, and at 31, this is realistically his last good shot at a Candidates win. He knows it. That kind of motivation changes a player.

I've got a soft spot for Giri. He's funny, self-aware about his reputation, and genuinely underrated as a pure chess player. Would I put money on him? Probably not. Would I be thrilled if he pulled it off? One hundred percent.

When It Starts, How It Works, and Where to Watch

Here's the practical stuff.

The 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament runs from March 28 to April 16 at the Cap St Georges Hotel in Pegeia, Cyprus. Round 1 starts March 29 at 15:30 local time — that's 8:30 AM Eastern, 6:00 PM IST.

**Format:** Double round-robin, 14 rounds. Each player faces every other player twice — once with white, once with black.

**Time control:** 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move from move 41.

**Prize fund:** A record €1,000,000.

**Round 1 pairings:** - Caruana vs. Nakamura (the headliner) - Praggnanandhaa vs. Giri - Sindarov vs. Esipenko - Bluebaum vs. Wei Yi

You can follow live on Chess.com's event page with commentary and engine analysis. FIDE's official site will also have full coverage. Set your alarms — Round 1 alone could be worth clearing your morning schedule.

My Totally Wrong Prediction

I'm going with Pragg. Not because I'm confident — I'm absolutely not confident — but because his form over the past twelve months has been scary good, and the double round-robin format tends to reward consistency over individual brilliance. If he can handle the psychological grind (and that's a real "if" for a first-timer), his chess is strong enough to beat anyone here.

Caruana is the safe pick. Nakamura is the chaos pick. Sindarov is the "nobody saw it coming" pick that half of Chess Twitter will claim they predicted all along if it happens.

The winner challenges Gukesh in November 2026 for the World Chess Championship. And given how Gukesh has been playing in Prague lately, whoever emerges from Cyprus might fancy their chances more than usual.

Three weeks out. I can't wait.