There has been some form of drama involving Magnus Carlsen and the Titled Tuesday in recent weeks. Whether it was applauding American teenager Jacorey Bynum after getting checkmated by him last month or raising eyebrows with a unique opening while facing Iranian GM Amin Tabatabaei shortly after.

In the two-day ‘Titled Tuesday Grand Prix’ online blitz event that got underway on Tuesday, the world No 1 was held to a draw by Kazakhstani Candidate Master Aldiyar Zharas in a game that went down the wire and lasted 66 moves. The two players were left with less than 40 seconds on the clock in a rook endgame and ended up shaking hands virtually via repetition after losing a rook and a couple of pawns each.

Carlsen plays out scratchy draw against Zharas

The game began with a Sicilian Defense opening and was far from perfect for the Norwegian Grandmaster, who is the reigning Rapid and Blitz world champion and had recently been crowned the inaugural FIDE Freestyle Chess world champion. The 35-year-old had committed a pawn blunder in the 23rd move (23. f5), allowing Zharas to gain the upper hand in the contest.

It did not take long for the eval bar to return to level terms, however, after the young Kazakhstani talent committed a series of errors, including a couple of blunders (42. Kg7 and 44. Ke6). Carlsen, however, had another little misstep around this stage (44. Ke2), and couldn’t capitalise on an opening to close the game out on a winning note.

Watch the endgame here:

CM Aldiyar Zharas holds Magnus Carlsen to a draw in round one, though it could be said that it was Magnus who held!https://t.co/KTxyG16xQu#TitledTuesday pic.twitter.com/BVOc8li4tv

— chess24 (@chess24com) February 17, 2026

Then again, Carlsen isn’t exactly known for bringing his ‘A’ game to the ‘Titled Tuesday’ events and in all likelihood participates to have some fun and to keep himself engaged with the sport. And the experience that these youngsters get, especially the confidence derived from a victory or a draw is invaluable and could help them greatly in their development as a player.

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.

Magnus Carlsen had entered the first ever FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship as the tearaway favourite, not just because he is the greatest player of this generation by a country mile but also because of the fact that he had won the inaugural Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour last year.

And in the end, his triumph over Fabiano Caruana in the final was more or less along expected lines, even if the
Norwegian Grandmaster was made to sweat hard and nearly let the trophy slip out of his grasp at one stage.

Another trophy in Carlsen’s crowded cabinet

Carlsen thus adds another piece of silverware to a trophy cabinet that is already running short of space. After all, his victory in the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship – formerly known as the FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship – is the 21st ‘World Championship’ of a career that had attained legendary status long back.

While it further underlines Carlsen’s legacy as one of the greatest to have ever played the game, if not the best, one can’t help but wonder whether chess is starting to go down the cricket route by having too many World Championships in place?

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The popular proverb “too many cooks spoil the broth”, after all, can be applied in the context of sports and showpiece events. Football, for instance, has multiple noteworthy events taking place across the year, but has only one showpiece event – the FIFA World Cup – that takes place every four years.

Rugby Union might have the Six Nations Championship or the Tri Nations Series taking place in the northern and southern hemisphere respectively. But the spotlight remains on the World Cup that, like football, takes place every four years.

Several other sporting disciplines have world championships that take place on an annual or a biennial basis – from badminton hosting it every year except during the Olympics to athletics hosting it every two years. Like football and rugby though, the sanctity of the term ‘World Championship’ is maintained

And then there’s chess and cricket. In the latter’s case, the ICC World Cup was, for the longest time, the crown jewel of the sport as far as global tournaments were concerned. And while it remains the pinnacle of the sport, the introduction of the T20 World Cup in 2007 and the World Test Championship has somewhat watered down the ‘World Championship’ aspect of the sport.

Too many world championships hurting chess? 

And in chess, that crown jewel status belongs to the FIDE World Championship, a tournament that has formally been in existence for nearly eight decades now, with informal matches having taken place even earlier. The Rapid and Blitz worlds are a recent phenomenon and have been jointly organised annually since 2012, but didn’t quite take the sheen off the Classical World Championship.

With the inaugural FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship and the soon-to-be-launched
Total Chess World Championship – a joint-venture between FIDE and Norway Chess – it would be safe to state that the sport has a bit of a ‘World Championship’ overkill at the moment.

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It is of course in the interest of every sports governing body – whether FIDE, ICC or FIFA – to host more events. More events translates to more revenue – especially through the broadcast rights and advertising – and can also be seen as beneficial for players as it provides them more opportunities to prove themselves on the field.

And Carlsen, for one, will not be complaining about competing in these events, especially since he’s semi-retired from the Classical format. The trophy and a fat pay cheque is only fair for someone who has ruled chess for over a decade now.

At the same time, it is the responsibility of FIDE and other organisations to preserve the brand value of their key events. And having too many iterations of those can ultimately be detrimental for these events.

Magnus Carlsen added another world title – his 21st to be precise – to his collection on Sunday, defeating Fabiano Caruana to win the inaugural FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in Weissenhaus, Germany. Carlsen held Caruana to a draw in three out of the four Rapid games and pulled off a dramatic victory in Game 3 to win the final by a 2.5-1.5 scoreline at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort.

The turning point of the contest was in the third 25+10 game, in which Carlsen snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Carlsen was desperately moving his king around for safety after a series of errors, allowing his 33-year-old American opponent to seize control of the game and close in on a victory.

Caruana, however, committed a couple of blunders of his own (32. e4 and 35. Qb3), and a player of Carlsen’s calibre was not going to allow him to wriggle away from that position. The Norwegian Grandmaster ended up winning Game 3 in 37 moves to move into the lead for the first time in the final, and
held on to that lead until the end to be crowned champion.

🇳🇴 Magnus Carlsen is the 2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion! ♟️🔥

He claims his 21st world title! #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/YRBC2GkM5M

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) February 15, 2026

Reacting to the see-saw final against Caruana, Carlsen admitted that he thought the game was over for him at one point.

“I thought that I was doing reasonably well for a long time, and then I missed one of his resources there with knight h4 and I reacted poorly. Usually when you get a completely lost position, it happens gradually. But in this case, I captured his knight and I realised that he has an in between check and I can resign,” Carlsen said in the post-match interview with Freestyle Chess.

“I had a little bit of hope still, but then when he found these very nice moves with king d2 and then f5, I thought this is over. It is a bit strange when it happens so suddenly that you just go from thinking that your position is completely fine and then it’s just lost. You don’t really have that much time to think about what has happened,” he continued.

‘I was smelling blood’

The world No 1 then revealed how Caruana missing a couple of opportunities to seal his victory, allowing him to fight his way back into the game and tilt the balance of the contest in his favour.

“There were a couple of early knockout punches that he missed. When I got in the c3 move, I thought my position has little bit of potential now. I couldn’t see a very clear knockout at that point, and I was hoping he couldn’t either. I thought as soon as he gets very low on time, the quality of his play drops very significantly,” the 35-year-old continued.

“At that point I was hoping I might have a chance, He made a few checks back and forth, it seemed he was getting more and more frustrated. Towards the end, I could have probably forced a draw with the move queen to e6 instead of rook to f8, but at that point, I was smelling blood.

“I’d been on the ropes for this game, and the second game wasn’t easy either, and I just that I’m probably not going to get a better chance than this one. Fortunately he collapsed in a matter of moves there. I’m very happy with that part that I managed to psychologically reset and play for a win when I could,” he added.

🇳🇴 Magnus Carlsen pulls off a stunning save against 🇺🇸 Fabiano Caruana, escaping a dead-lost position and turning the momentum around.

Now he takes the lead — and moves one step closer to a remarkable 21st world title!#FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/W0NDc4ORn4

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) February 15, 2026

Carlsen had previously won the FIDE Classical World Championship five times before deciding against defending his title in 2023. He is also the reigning Rapid and Blitz world champion, and has now added a the tag of ‘Freestyle Chess world champion’ following his victory in Weissenhaus.

“It feels great. Obviously the format and everything isn’t too different from what we’ve played on the tour but I’ve had one really, really off day each time in these championships, and I lost soundly to Wesley and then to Ian Nepomniachtchi as well on those days. I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t bring the level that I showed yesterday. It feels great to win, but I still feel like I can do even better. But it’s very nice to win,” Carlsen signed off.

Fabiano Caruana and R Praggnanandhaa are among seven leading players who have complained against the scheduling conflict between the Esports World Cup and the Grand Chess Tour, who have major events lined up in the month of August.

Caruana and ‘Pragg’ had signed an open letter along with Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vincent Keymer, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Alireza Firouzja urging the EWC as well as the GCT to arrive at a compromise and rearrange their dates to ensure that the world’s best players get to compete in both events instead of being forced to choose between the two.

Hikaru disagrees with open letter to EWC and GCT organisers

World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura, however, disagrees with Caruana, Praggnanandhaa and the other chess stars contributing to the open letter. According to the American Grandmaster, the scheduling conflict between the Esports World Cup – in which chess makes a second appearance after a successful debut last year – and the Grand Chess Tour is a “good thing” for chess.

“I think this conflict — is actually a good thing. The reason is, I’m going to be honest, I think that every single player who signed this letter — they aren’t going to bring any more viewership or any more interest to events,” Nakamura was quoted by RookReview as saying.

“For example, if players will play in St. Louis, I don’t think that’s going to affect EWC, because Magnus will play, I will play, Alireza as well — and vice versa.”

‘I don’t want to call it a cartel or something’

Nakamura, who will be headlining the Esports World Cup in Riyadh along with world No 1 and defending champion Magnus Carlsen, added that having more tournaments in the calendar would mean more opportunities to players who normally don’t get invited to leading tournaments.

“Additionally, I think that one of the big problems I see with chess currently is that there are a handful of tournaments. I don’t want to call it a cartel or something — but essentially the same Top-15 players receive invitations to all events. And the players between Top-15 and Top-25 are not substantially worse than most the players in the Top-10…

“I think having this conflict is actually going to be a good thing. Because it’s going to provide more opportunities for players across the board. We’re not going to be in a situation where you have 10 players just hogging up all the invites and getting all the money,” the 38-year-old added.

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The
Last Chance Qualifier for the Esports World Cup takes place from 6 to 8 August, with the main event then taking place from the 11th to the 15th of that month.

The 11th season of the Grand Chess Tour, meanwhile includes the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz (2 to 6 August) and the Sinquefield Cup (10-20 August) taking place around the same time, both events taking place in St Louis, USA.

Reigning world champion D Gukesh has been honoured with the ‘Titan of the Year’ award by Tata Group’s watch-making giant, Titan which has launched a limited edition watch as a tribute to his efforts on the chess board.

Gukesh became the youngest chess world champion at the age of just 18 when he defeated Ding Liren in late 2024. He is also only the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to become a chess world champion.

Price of Gukesh’s Titan watch

Titan had last year given the award to Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma who was the first Indian to travel to space, a feat he achieved in 1984. In his honour also a watch was unvieled called the ‘Unity watch’.

Gukesh became the second recipient of the award and the first from the sports industry. The watch was unveiled on February 6 at an event in Mumbai where Gukesh was honoured as well.

“Gukesh never rushed the moment. While others chased speed, he chose stillness. While the clock counted down, his clarity only grew sharper. In chess, time reveals temperament. In Gukesh, it revealed composure far beyond his years. To honour that calm command over seconds and decisions, we introduce the Titan Grandmaster, a 500-piece limited edition tribute watch,” Titan wrote in a social media post.

Presenting Titan of the Year 2026: Gukesh Dommaraju – The Youngest World Chess Champion

Gukesh never rushed the moment.

While others chased speed, he chose stillness.
While the clock counted down, his clarity only grew sharper.

In chess, time reveals temperament.
In Gukesh,… pic.twitter.com/NvLpYU6F6h

— Titan Watches India (@titanwatches) February 10, 2026

The watch is priced at a whooping Rs 69,995 and capped at 500 pieces. It has chess pieces at hour marks like Queen at 12 O’clock, Rook at 9 O’clock, Bishop at 3 O’clock and King at 6 O’clock, while the remaining indices take the form of pawns. A chess board is also engraved in the face of the watch.

Gukesh prepares to defend his title

The reigning world champion did not have the best of 2025 and this year too did not start on the best of notes as he had an
underwhelming outing at the recent Tata Steel Chess Masters. This year is going to be crucial for Gukesh as he prepares to defend his crown which will be on the line towards the end of 2026.

His challenger will be determined next month at the Candidates where his compatriot R Praggnanandhaa is one of the eight competitors.

Garry Kasparov is widely regarded as one of the best to have ever played chess alongside Anatoly Karpov, Bobby Fischer, Magnus Carlsen and others, if not the greatest. Such was the Soviet-born Russian chess star’s dominance that he reigned as the world No 1 for a record 255 months from 1984 until his retirement from competitive chess in 2005. He was also the youngest world champion at the time, defeating Karpov at the age of 22 in 1985, and would hold on to that title for 15 years until losing to fellow Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik in 2000.

So what exactly was the reason behind Kasparov’s dominance? According to Soviet-born Israeli GM Boris Gelfand, it was the 63-year-old’s creativity and his ability to invent new ideas and opponents that ensured he remained a step ahead of everyone else.

“I think his creativity. He was inventing so many interesting ideas and all different openings that he was really above his opponents in this direction. Also matched with a very strong calculation. I think he played two hours per 40 and spent one-and-a-half hour for the first 20 moves, and maybe 10 of them were preparation or 12,” Gelfand said on the Chess with Mustreader podcast.

“But this part from a bridge between opening and middle game. he played so much better than his opponents. He knew how to outplay (his opponents) in this part of the game.

“Kasparov knew how to find ideas. HIs opening creativity, depth of creativity and the feeling was really amazing,” the 57-year-old added.

‘Kasparov focused on few openings, but went extremely deep in them’

Gelfand, who had unsuccessfully challenged Indian legend Viswanathan Anand for the World Championship in 2012 and had a peak ranking of No 3 in , further revealed attending a training camp with Kasparov and his late coach Yury Dokhoian and how he came up with an entirely new opening after focusing on the board for about 20 minutes.

“Once I had a training camp with him. Yury Dokhoian, his late coach, sits, and we decide to analyse Najdorf (Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation). Let’s say bishop e3 in the sixth move. And he thinks. Thinking five minutes, thinking 10 minutes, thinking 20 minutes. And they (others present in the camp) push Yuri saying, ‘What is this? Let’s analyse’,” Gelfand continued.

“(He) tells me to sit and wait. And then he kept up with this idea – knight g4, bishop g5, h6, g5, g7. One of the best system. In 2010, I won against Nakamura and Karjakin. Maybe the best till now, or one of the best. It’s not refuted till now.

“He just came and was able to go so deep in this idea. He focused so intensely for 20 minutes and he created a new opening idea. This was a reason of his dominance. Kasparov focused on few openings, but went extremely deep in them,” the 2009 Chess World Cup winner added.

R Praggnanandhaa kept the hopes of an all-Indian World Championship showdown with D Gukesh alive when he became the only Indian to qualify for the Candidates Tournament that will be taking place in Cyprus in the months of March and April.

‘Pragg’ had qualified for the prestigious event for the second consecutive time in December
as the winner of the 2025 FIDE Circuit, thus becoming the only Indian to compete in the ‘Open’ section with compatriot Arjun Erigaisi, the current Indian No 1 in all three formats, having failed to secure his place through the other pathways.

And among the players he’s likely to come face to face with in the upcoming tournament with Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri, who had secured his qualification as one of the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament that took place in Uzbekistan in September.

Giri backs Nakamura and Caruana as the favourites

In a conversation with Greg Mustreader on the Chess with Mustreader podcast, Giri felt that it was only natural to include Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana in the favourites conversation. Nakamura and Caruana are second and third respectively on the FIDE Classical ratings, and qualified for the tournament via the ratings spot and as the winner of the 2024 FIDE Circuit respectively.

“It’s very sensible to place Hikaru and Fabi in the top two, simply because Hikaru is the highest rated and somewhat surprising to me he has the best score against the field. Largely because he’s doing well against Fabiano recently, and he’s been doing fine against me,” Giri said on the podcast.

“Fabi, of course, such a stable player for so many years, been winning so many events. He got to the match with Magnus, and he almost took him all the way down and just to the wire and almost won,” he added.

As for Praggnanandhaa, the Dutch GM made a passing mention of the world No 8 in the FIDE Classical ratings.

“Pragg played, but he didn’t come as close as the others in his outing the last time. He gave it a good shot,” Giri added while discussing the other players in the fray.

Besides Nakamura, Caruana, Giri and Praggnanandhaa, the upcoming Candidates – which takes place from 28 March to 16 April – will feature Matthias Bluebaum, Javokhir Sindarov, Wei Yi and Andrey Esipenko.

Chess is set to remain part of the Esports World Cup after a successful debut in Riyadh last year, with world No 1 and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen headlining the event once again. In a social media post earlier this week, the Esports World Cup Foundation shed light on the qualification pathways as well as the format, dates and other information pertaining to the World Cup that will once again be taking place in the capital city of the Gulf kingdom.

As per the announcement, there are four pathways for players to qualify for the Esports World Cup, one of which is reserved for the winner of the 2025 edition – Carlsen in this case. World Cup hopefuls can also book their slot in the tournament through the Speed Chess Championship as well as the Chess.com Global Championship, both events offering three slots each.

Another six slots will then be decided through the Champion Chess Tour leaderboard. That, however, is not all as far as the number of chess Grandmasters in action at the Esports World Cup is concerned, with the EWCF set to announce additional slots for the event at a later date.

The sharpest minds in the world gather to outthink, outlast, and outplay.

Chess returns to the 2026 Esports World Cup ♟️ pic.twitter.com/KZBLQU9FD7

— EWC Extra (@EWC_Extra) February 3, 2026

While the third edition of the Esports World Cup will be taking place from 6 July to 23 August in Riyadh, the world’s top chess players will assemble in the Saudi capital from 11 to 15 August, with a total prize pool of $1.5 million (£1.09 million) being set aside for this event.

What the format will be like at Esports World Cup 2026 Chess? 

As for the format, the chess event will feature three stages. The Play-in will feature eight players divided into two groups of four and will take place in a GSL format wherein two games are played per match.

That will be followed by the group stage, which will feature 16 players divided into two groups of eight. This stage will follow a double elimination bracket, with matches once again comprising two games.

The top four teams from each group then advance to the Playoffs, the final stage of the chess tournament at the 2026 Esports World Cup. A total of eight players will be in action in this round, competing in a single-elimination bracket with matches in this stage featuring four games.

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The number of games per match will then increase to six when only four players are left standing. The top two players will then be facing off for the title in best-of-three clash.

Carlsen, who represents Team Liquid,
had won the chess event last year after beating Team Falcons’ Alireza Firouzja 2-0 in the final. The Norwegian had defeated India’s Nihal Sarin (S8UL Esports) during the quarter-finals in the playoff en route to victory.

Indian No 1 Arjun Erigaisi, representing Gen.G Esports, had gone as far as the semi-finals, ultimately finishing fourth after suffering a 2.5-3.5 loss to Hikaru Nakamura (Team Falcons) in the third-place playoff.