Indian chess prodigy Arjun Erigaisi has made some bold predictions days ahead of the FIDE Candidates 2026 chess tournament, which will decide the challenger for D Gukesh’s world title. The winner of the eight-player FIDE Candidates 2026, which will be played from 28 March in Cyprus, will take on world champion Gukesh in the World Chess Championship late this year.

While Erigaisi narrowly missed qualifying for the Candidates, he is backing his good friend and fellow Indian R Praggnanandhaa to do well in the prestigious tournament. The 20-year-old Praggnanandhaa has never won the Candidates, but Erigaisi picked him and FIDE World Cup winner Javokhir Sindarov as two players he would be rooting for, in an interview with ChessBase India.

FIDE Candidates: Erigaisi supports Pragg, but Caruana is his favourite

However, neither Praggnanandhaa nor Uzbek Grandmaster Sindarov features in Erigaisi’s top pick to win the tournament. The 22-year-old from Warangal feels that American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana is the clear favourite to win the FIDE Candidates 2026.

Interestingly, Erigaisi did not pick world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura, who, for many, is the favourite to win the tournament.

When asked who would win the World Chess Championship 2026 between Gukesh and Caruana if the American qualifies, Erigaisi was a bit uncertain but picked the USA chess maestro as his final choice. Despite Erigaisi giving Caruana the advantage due to his experience, he also added that Gukesh would give a tough fight.

“Probably Fabiano. In general, I believe Gukesh does well against Fabi (Caruana), but in a World Chess Championship match, it’s quite different. I still think it will be close,” Erigaisi told ChessBase India.

It will be a dream come true for Caruana if Erigaisi’s prediction holds in the end. He has already made one failed attempt, losing to Magnus Carlsen in the 2018 World Chess Championship.

Meanwhile, the
pairings for FIDE Candidates 2026 were revealed on Friday. Caruana will start the tournament against rival Nakamura, while Praggnanandhaa faces Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri in his first match.

Arjun Erigaisi failed to reach the semi-finals of the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in Weissenhaus on Friday, but still had a memorable classification round with a victory over world No 1 Magnus Carlsen. The Indian chess prodigy also defeated Vincent Keymer and FIDE World Cup winner Javokhir Sindarov.

The 22-year-old from Warangal, Erigaisi, lost the remaining four games to finish in sixth place in the classification as Carlsen, Keymer, Fabiano Caruana and Nodirbek Abdusattorov progressed to the semi-finals.

Erigaisi, fast becoming Carlsen’s ‘boogeyman’

Amazingly, Carlsen’s only defeat in the classification round came against the Indian Erigaisi before he won the round robin with 4.5 points out of 7.

The match was played in the No 277 position, where the two bishops are in the extreme corner on the king’s side. Making the most of the white pieces’ advantage, Erigaisi pushed Carlsen into a corner early on

“This is a position that you don’t even want to get in your nightmares,” legendary Judit Polgar said in commentary as Erigiasi took an advantage over Carlsen. “These are the positions that you want to make a good move and then resign because you don’t want to suffer longer.”

Chess great Peter Leko added, “You won’t even wish it upon your biggest enemy. This is a horror.”

Erigaisi’s advantage in the early opening can be explained by the fact that he did not play a piece from the back rank till the 10th move,

“I find it interesting that Arjun has not moved any other piece other than his pawns. It’s like a pawn war,” Polgar underlined.

As per the Lichess engine, Carlsen also made four inaccurate moves during the game, and a major mistake on the 27th move before resigning next.

How Arjun crushed Carlsen

It must have been a difficult defeat for Carlsen to digest, having recently lost to Erigiasi at the FIDE World Blitz Championship 2025 towards the end of last year. Carlsen had infamously
slammed the table in frustration after losing to Arjun, and while at Weissenhaus, he repeated any such antics; it’s clear that Erigiasi is soon becoming Carlsen’s boogeyman.