The 2026 Candidates Tournament is set to get underway less than two weeks from now, with some of the world’s best players in action at the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus from 28 March to 16 April. Eight elite Grandmasters will be taking part in the prestigious tournament in which the winner earns the right to challenge for the FIDE World Championship – which currently is in possession of Gukesh Dommaraju.

Among the eight elite GMs in action are Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, who are ranked second and third respectively in the world and are the front-runners entering the tournament. While Caruana was the first to qualify for the 2026 Candidates as the winner of the 2024 FIDE Circuit, Nakamura sealed his place in the event towards the very end as the highest-rated player outside of those who had failed to secure their spot through other avenues.

Caruana the top favourite according to bookies

Despite world No 2 Nakamura being ranked slightly higher than  world No 3 Caruana, it’s the latter who’s the top favourite to win the tournament and challenge Gukesh for his world title, if the latest odds on betting platform bet365 is to be taken into account.

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The bookmakers, after all, have already opened markets on the players most likely to win the 2026 Candidates and the Italian-American GM leads the pack with a 13/8 price and an implied probability of 38.1 per cent. Nakamura’s second on the list with an implied probability of 27.8 per cent while R Praggnanandhaa – the only Indian among the eight competitors this year, is third with 16.7 per cent.

Praggnanandhaa, like Nakamura, had sealed his spot towards the very end of the qualification cycle as the winner of the 2025 FIDE Circuit, and will be making his second consecutive appearance in the tournament.

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The other players who have qualified for the tournament are FIDE Grand Swiss winner Anish Giri and runner-up Matthias Bluebaum as well as the trio of Javokhir Sindarov, Wei Yi and Andrey Esipenko – who had finished first, second and third respectively at the FIDE World Cup.

Vladimir Kramnik is making headlines once again and this time it’s got to do with the upcoming Candidates Tournament. The controversial Russian chess legend has questioned world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura’s qualification for the tournament and the pathway that he chose to secure his place in the elite tournament.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Kramnik argued that American Grandmaster Nakamura had failed to compete in 40 games during the qualification period from February 2025 to January 2026. The 50-year-old argued that the Maritime Open, which had taken place in October last year in Summerside, Canada and had Nakamura among its participants, was not an eligible tournament.

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“Any tournament with players 2700+ must be registered at least 30 days before start to be rated by FIDE. Based on open source information, Maritime open wasn’t,” Kramnik wrote in the post on X.

“That means the tournament shouldn’t be counted for rating, unless, in accordance with FIDE regulations, it wasn’t decided otherwise by FIDE President.

“This is the reason (Sergey) Karjakin was excluded from the list this month, exactly because of this regulation,” he added.

Important, I suddenly realised, there is an issue with forthcoming Candidates. According to FIDE regulations, seemingly Abdusattorov must replace Nakamura, based on following articles of FIDE official regulations:

1. Qualification place (rating) goes to a player with highest… pic.twitter.com/gBjBXWI3Kv

— Vladimir Kramnik (@VBkramnik) March 3, 2026

Kramnik further argued that since Nakamura was not eligible and Fabiano Caruana – the highest-ranked player behind him in the rating pathway – had already secured his qualification earlier, the spot should instead go to Nodirbek Abdusattorov.

Kramnik added that the young Uzbekistani Grandmaster – currently ranked fifth in the world – as someone who “deserves ten times more anyways”, with regards to the ratings spot.

Why Kramnik’s argument against Nakamura doesn’t work

The reason why Kramnik’s argument doesn’t work in this case is due to the fact FIDE approval for a tournament can be secured after the tournament has already taken place, and doesn’t necessarily need to be secured before the action gets underway.

The Lausanne-based governing body for the sport, after all, explicitly allows tournaments to be counted for the ratings pathway if approved by the FIDE president – the post that is currently occupied by Arkady Dvorkovich.

Kramnik has been criticised for his statements in the past, particularly for his controversial anti-cheating crusade in which he had leveled cheating accusations against a number of players
including the late Daniel Naroditsky. And his argument against Nakamura could end up being viewed in similar light.

The Candidates Tournament, which will decide the challenger to D Gukesh for the FIDE World Championship, takes place in Cyprus from 28 March to 15 April.

Chinese Grandmaster Wei Yi has called R Praggnanandhaa an all-round player and backed the Indian Grandmaster to win the Candidates tournament that begins March 28 in Cyprus. He also said that he is far behind in the race to win the event.

Candidates takes place at the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus, between 28 March and 16 April with the winner of the eight-team tournament getting the chance to challenge world champion D Gukesh later this year for his title.

‘Pragg has experience’

Yi said that he was far behind in the list of favourites for the tournament. He put American duo of Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura as the top contenders. Apart from Caruana, Nakamura, Praggnanandhaa and Yi, Javokhir Sindarov, Andrey Esipenko and Matthias Blubaum are the others who will be competing to get a shot at the world title.

“To be honest, I don’t think I have great chances to win the Candidates because if you want to win the Candidates, you need extensive experience. So yeah, that’s why I think Fabi (Fabiano Caruana) and Hikaru (Nakamura), also Anish Giri, have great chances to win the Candidates,” Yi said at the Chess with Mustreader channel on YouTube.

Talking about Praggnanandhaa, the Chinese Grandmaster said that he is an all-round player and his experience at the Candidates also matter.

“Pragg has great chances to win Candidates because I think he’s an all-around chess player. He also has experience of playing in the Candidates from two years ago. That’s also very important,” Yi said.

“Overall, I think Fabi and Hikaru, they’re in tier one, and Praggnanandhaa and Anish are in tier two. For the other players, I think they don’t have experience in Candidates, so that’s very important.”

“Players like Esipenko and Bluebaum have a lower rating (than the rest of us), but I don’t think they are weak because their performance in the previous year was quite good. So I think all of us are in tier three,” Yi added.