2026 Candidates and Women’s Candidates Preview

The 2026 FIDE Candidates and Women’s Candidates tournaments begin on Sunday, March 29 in Paphos, Cyprus. Eight players compete in each event, with the winners earning rights to challenge reigning World Champion GM Gukesh Dommaraju and Women’s World Champion GM Ju Wenjun, respectively.

Graphic courtesy of FIDE

The 14-round, double Round Robin events run through Wednesday, April 15, with tiebreaks on the 16^th, if necessary. Rounds begin at 3:30 p.m. local time, which beginning on March 29, is UTC+3. So, games begin at 8:30 a.m. EDT, or 5:30 a.m. PDT. Pairings have already been determined, and can be viewed here.

Follow Chess Life Online for round-by-round coverage from some of America’s top players, including GM Josh Friedel, IM Robert Shlyakhtenko, IM Tatev Abrahamyan, WGM Katerina Nemcova, and WGM Sabina Foisor.

In the Open, American GMs Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura enter as the highest-rated players. In the Women’s, Chinese GMs Zhu Jiner and Tan Zhongyi are the ratings favorites.

But these tournaments are tense and unpredictable, so let’s take an in-depth look into all the participants and their chances. For each tournament, I’ll divide the competitors into three subjective groups: Favorites, Contenders, and Dark Horses.

All opinions expressed in this article are my own, and surely you'll disagree with me on at least one of them. Sound off on social media, and be sure to tag US Chess when you do!

Open: The Favorites

In the Open, Nakamura and Caruana have to be considered the two favorites. Both have been consistent and dominant over the past few years, and it’s hard to bet against experience. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and call GM Anish Giri the third favorite!

GM Hikaru Nakamura

Nakamura qualified via the FIDE ratings spot, holding the highest average classical rating among eligible players during the qualification period. He enters the tournament as the world’s highest-rated player not named Magnus, with a 2810 live rating.

Nakamura is a consistent player who can definitely score enough points to finish atop the standings. In the 2024 Candidates, Nakamura tied for second with 8½/14, only a half-point behind Gukesh.

NakaOotes — Photo courtesy of SLCC/Lennart Ootes.

One question mark will be Nakamura’s relative lack of top-level games over the past two years. He chose to play smaller events to reach the FIDE games minimum to qualify for the rating spot, and, since the 2024 Candidates, his only classical tournaments against fellow super-GMs have been two years of Norway Chess and last year’s American Cup. But he actually gained rating in all three tournaments, suggesting he should be as consistent today as he was when he was more active a few years ago.

All things considered, Nakamura is my pick to win the Candidates. He is consistent enough to score wins against the lower-rated players in the field and dangerous enough to dash the dreams of the main contenders.

Specifically, the last six decisive classical games between Nakamura and Caruana have all ended in Nakamura’s favor, including a game from the 2024 Candidates, while Caruana hasn’t beaten Nakamura in Classical since the 2022 Candidates. Nakamura’s 2024 victory is included below:

I think it is much more likely that Nakamura avoids a “fluke” of losing both games to the same player (like he did against GM Vidit Gujrathi in 2024) than it is that he scores fewer wins against the bottom-half of the field, making a 9/14 score (which was good enough to win last year) a reasonable expectation.

GM Fabiano Caruana

It’s hard to bet against the winner of the 2018 Candidates, though, and he definitely enters as one of the favorites. Caruana was the first player to qualify for this year’s Candidates, winning the 2024 FIDE Circuit thanks to an impressive string of results capped off by a very busy year-end push.

Caruana’s form has perhaps been at its finest in the U.S. Championship, which he has won for the past four years. There, he has consistently held his own against his top competitors while managing to win enough games to stay ahead of the field. This was also on display in the 2024 Candidates, where Caruana also tied for second with 8½/14, scoring four wins against players finishing in the bottom half of the field and losing one game to Nakamura.

Photo courtesy SLCC/Lennart Ootes.

The biggest question for me — other than his Nakamura problem — is just how good of a form he will be in. On the one hand, his 2025 was not a great a year by his (admittedly very lofty) standards. He lost 20 FIDE rating points in the 2025 Tata Steel Masters, scoring only 6/13, and, in his most recent event, he lost a classical game to GM Wesley So in the American Cup when he only needed a draw. But there were high points of his year, too, including two wins in Norway Chess against fellow candidate GM Wei Yi.

I don’t think a few uncharacteristic results portend doom for Caruana, especially considering that he had already qualified for the Candidates after his successful 2024 campaign. This year, he was ultimately playing with house money and incentivized to hide some of his best preparation (which has always been one of the most dangerous parts of his game). Plus, his ability to win as Black against players rated over 2700 cannot be discounted. Remember this gem from October?

I wouldn’t be surprised if he quickly comes out playing at his highest level, especially considering how used he is to the pressure of this event after having already played in it five times. But his recent results don’t make him the runaway favorite some commentators are acting like he is.

GM Anish Giri

The Dutch grandmaster has been on a bit of a comeback tour since missing the Candidates in both 2022 and 2024. He fell out of the world top ten in May of 2024, going as low as 23^rd in the rankings in February of 2025, but has since shot back up into the top 10 and currently sits as the eighth highest-rated player in the world, peaking as high as fifth last November.

Photo courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza.

Giri qualified by winning last year’s FIDE Grand Swiss, showing impressive stamina and nerves throughout the event. I think his calculation and, just as importantly, his confidence are higher than they've ever been in his career. The way he won the below game against GM Hans Niemann was a bit spooky to follow along with live, as it was so clear that he believed he was going to win from the start.

If Giri can play with this level of confidence, it will be a far cry from the “Draw-nish” memes from a decade ago, when Giri was unable to convert multiple promising positions in the 2016 Candidates, eventually drawing all 14 games.

The 31-year-old enters with years of experience at the top level, and, amid the recent rating deflation, has managed to string together a run of results to claw back up the rankings. Considering that many of his similarly aged colleagues (looking at you, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi) have not been able to do the same, I think many commentators are overlooking just how good Giri has been recently.

Open: The Contenders

Ranking the rest of the players is harder, as some are less experienced but on recent hot streaks, while others have been consistent for a long time but not as impressive recently. I’ll put GMs Javokhir Sindarov and Wei Yi in this category.

Javokhir Sindarov and Wei Yi compete for the Viswanathan Anand Cup in Goa. (All photos courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza)

GM Javokhir Sindarov

The 2025 FIDE World Cup winner is not to be taken lightly. The 20-year-old Uzbek prodigy showed that his results from last fall’s knock-out tournament were not a fluke, gaining 19 points in this year’s Tata Steel Masters to reach his peak rating of 2745 and peak ranking of 12^th in the world.

This is his first Candidates, and he’s young, but those are the only reasons he’s not in the Favorites category given his recent play.

GM Wei Yi

Chinese GM Wei Yi also qualified from the 2025 FIDE World Cup, where he was runner-up to Sindarov. He enters as the eighth highest-rated player in the world, having put up mostly solid results since his impressive 2024 Tata Steel Masters victory. It was at this tournament where more casual chess fans were introduced to Wei’s ridiculously high ceiling as an imaginative player.

While this is also his first Candidates, he is no stranger to high-pressure events as a regular participant in China’s FIDE Olympiad squad. And, at age 26, he should be a mature enough player to capitalize on his chances without folding under pressure.

Open: The Dark Horses

The remaining players are Indian GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Russian GM Andrey Esipenko, and German GM Matthias Bluebaum. Praggnanandhaa won the 2025 FIDE Circuit, while Esipenko qualified by finishing third in the World Cup and Bluebaum by finishing second in the Grand Swiss.

Praggnanandhaa’s results have been very good, particularly in the 2025 Tata Steel Masters, but inconsistent. He finished with an even score in his first Candidates in 2024, and I’m not sure he has shown enough signs of improvement since then to make him a serious contender, even though he is a safer bet than the other two names in this category.

Esipenko finished third in a wild World Cup that was replete with upsets, including his own 4–2 win against German GM Vincent Keymer. But Esipenko’s wins against Keymer came in the rapid tiebreak after two uneventful classical draws. He did win both classical games in the match for third place against Uzbek GM Nodirbek Yakubboev, but overall we learned more about his ability to hold a solid draw against a strong player than anything about the 24-year-old’s potential upside.

Finally, Bluebaum enters as the least experienced player in the field, at least at the elite level. But the 28-year-old made the most of his chances at the Grand Swiss, impressing many with his style of play. And in this year’s Tata Steel Masters, he achieved a number of very promising positions against great players, struggling a bit with conversion. If he tightens up his game, he could easily ruin anybody’s tournament, but the leap he’d need to make from just crossing the 2700 barrier to winning the Candidates still seems a bit out of reach.

Women’s: The Favorite

In the Women’s field, Russian GM Aleksandra Goryachkina and Chinese GM Tan Zhongyi have each won a previous edition of the Candidates, but neither enter this tournament playing their best chess. Instead, Chinese GM Zhu Jiner enters this tournament in a class of her own.

Photo courtesy FIDE/Anna Shtourman.

GM Zhu Jiner

What a year for Zhu. After spending most of 2023 and 2024 in the 2400s, Zhu broke into the Women’s top 10 in November of 2024 (at age 21). Now 23 years old, she sits at number four in the world, peaking as high as second (with a 2579 rating) in November of last year. A lot of her rating gains came during the 2024-2025 FIDE Women’s Grand Prix cycle, which she won handily — finishing first or second in all three events she played in — to secure her spot in this tournament.

She’s still young, but she already shows signs of being a universal player who is equally comfortable grinding an endgame and conducting an attack. She has also had no problem playing a lot of decisive games, and has consistently bounced back from the occasional loss by delivering multiple victories. It’s hard to pick just one example of her style, but this game from the Women’s Grand Prix event last May is a good introduction:

Women’s: The Contenders

If you’ve won this tournament before, you’re a contender to win it again, and I won’t be convinced otherwise. So both Tan and Goryachkina will go here. Joining them is Kazakhstan’s GM Bibisara Assaubayeva, who is coming off a year featuring several of her strongest-ever performances in classical chess.

GM Bibisara Assaubayeva

I almost considered putting Assaubayeva in the Favorites category with how good her chess has been recently. She had won the FIDE Women’s World Blitz Championship in 2021 and 2022 (and again last year!), but didn’t become a GM until last year. Now, her classical chess has definitely caught up to her skill in faster time controls. She qualified via the 2025 FIDE Women’s Events path, where she was dominant.

Photo courtesy Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Earlier this year, in the Tata Steel Challengers, Assaubayeva gained 19 points for a +2 score in a strong field where she more than held her own. She’s had cleaner victories, but I’m partial to sharing her win in the first round over GM Andy Woodward (who eventually won the event). Here, she shows that she can navigate complex positions and that she has the nerves to hang on in the face of danger. That’s what it takes to win an event this grueling:

GM Tan Zhongyi

The 2025 FIDE Women’s World Championship runner-up finished third in the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup to qualify for another shot at the title. The last world championship match had to be a bit of a let-down, with Tan losing 6½–2½ after losing four consecutive games beginning in the fifth round. She also had a disappointing showing at last year’s Cairns Cup, going 3½/9.

Tan — Photo courtesy Anna Shtourman/FIDE.

But the 2017 Women’s World Champion shouldn’t be counted out just because of a few disappointing performances. She did what she needed to do at the Women’s World Cup, after all, and she’s no stranger to this format. Besides, it was only two years ago that she won this event with a 9/14 score, ahead of three players tied for second with 7½/14 scores.

Plus, her one win over GM Ju Wenjun in last year’s title fight shows just how stubborn and solid of a player she can be:

GM Aleksandra Goryachkina

It’s been five years since Goryachkina reached her peak rating of 2611, making her one of only six women to ever cross 2600 FIDE. Now at a respectable 2534 (good for seventh in the world), the 27-year-old has become a consistent name atop the standings of women’s events. Recent accolades include a win in the 2023 FIDE Women’s World Cup and last year’s FIDE Women’s World Rapid title.

Goryachkina after her 2023 Women's World Cup Victory. (Photo courtesy FIDE/Stev Bonhage)

Goryachkina qualified by finishing second in the 2024-2025 FIDE Women’s Grand Prix cycle, again speaking to her consistency. But unlike her fiery Candidates debut in 2019 — where she won with a 9½/14 score a point-and-a-half ahead of the field — Goryachkina’s recent results have been more conservative, raising some questions about whether she can produce enough wins to top the leaderboard, or whether she’ll deliver something closer to her 2024 performance of two wins, two losses, and ten draws.

Last fall, Goryachkina competed in the Open section of the FIDE Grand Swiss, since she had already qualified for the Candidates. She gained rating for her 5/11 score there, scoring wins against legendary players like GM Boris Gelfand while showing her ability to outgun opponents in sharp endgames, like the one against GM Daniil Yuffa below:

Women’s: The Dark Horses

The four remaining players in this year’s field are Ukrainian GM Anna Muzychuk, Russian GM Kateryna Lagno, and Indian GMs Divya Deshmukh and Vaishali Rameshbabu. Muzychuk qualified at the last second when Indian GM Humpy Koneru announced that she was withdrawing from the event. Divya qualified by winning the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup, while Vaishali and Lagno finished first and second, respectively, at the 2025 FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss.

Muzychuk enters the tournament ranked eighth in the world. She is the fourth woman to ever cross the FIDE 2600 ratings threshold, and she finished second in the 2017 Women’s World Championship knockout tournament. She finished third in the 2024-2025 FIDE Women’s Events cycle, so she is clearly still in good form. If she had more than a week to prepare, she’d easily be a contender.

Lagno is a tricky one to categorize this year. She’s no stranger to the big stage, having competed for the Women's World Championship in 2018. And her performance at last year’s Women’s Grand Swiss was excellent. But it was also just one of two classical events since 2023 where she didn’t lose rating! This lack of consistency makes it hard to call her a contender, despite her obvious upside.

When Divya won the 2025 Women’s World Cup, earning her GM title directly as a result, it was easy to say that she would just be happy to be here. But, like Goryachkina, she delivered a strong 5/11 performance in the Grand Swiss, gaining 19 points and showing that she can play as well as anybody in this field. It’s still early in the 20-year-old’s career, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she finishes closer to third than eighth.

Finally, Vaishali has had an up-and-down couple of years since earning her GM title in 2024 and qualifying for the 2024 Women’s Candidates tournament (where she came back from a slow start to tie for second with a 7½/9 score). But her win in last year’s Women’s Grand Swiss — her second consecutive victory in that tournament — shows that she knows how to peak at the right time. And if she does, she could totally win this thing, even if the 24-year-old doesn’t feel like a safe bet just yet.