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.