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.

The FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2026 will be held from February 13 to 15 at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort in Wangels, Germany. For the first time, the event is being jointly organised by FIDE and Freestyle Chess, marking a big shift from the tension seen between the two sides just a year ago.

This is also the first time the tournament is officially called the ‘FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship’, even though FIDE had earlier organised world title events in the same format in 2019 and 2022 under the name Fischer Random World Championship.

How the structure has changed from 2025

In 2025, Freestyle Chess was run as a year-long Grand Slam Tour with multiple legs across the world. However, there is no full Freestyle Tour this year. Instead, the world championship is now a standalone three-day event with rapid time controls and a reduced prize fund.

The qualification system has also changed this year. In 2026, six players qualified through the 2025 Freestyle Grand Slam Tour, wne wildcard was nominated, and one player came through an online play-in open to titled players. The final event features eight players in total.

Tournament format in 2026

• February 13: Single round-robin group stage (7 rounds) with a 10+5 time control.

• February 14: Semifinals (best-of-four matches, 25+10 time control).

• February 15: Final (best-of-four match, 25+10 time control).

Only the top four players from the group stage advance to the knockout stage. The total prize pool is $300,000 (Rs 2.7 crore), with $100,000 (Rs 90 lakh) going to the champion.

Who are the participants?

The eight players fighting for the title are:

• Magnus Carlsen

• Fabiano Caruana

• Levon Aronian

• Vincent Keymer

• Arjun Erigaisi

• Javokhir Sindarov

• Hans Niemann

• Nodirbek Abdusattorov

India’s
D Gukesh and
R Praggnanandhaa are notable absentees, while Nakamura has decided not to defend his title.

Nakamura, who won the 2022 Fischer Random World Championship, declined to participate this time, citing the rushed arrangement, change in format, and his focus on the Candidates Tournament.

Who are the favourites?

Magnus Carlsen enters as the top-rated player in the world and arguably the biggest favourite. His rapid skills make him very dangerous in a short event like this. Fabiano Caruana is another strong contender. Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Javokhir Sindarov are also among the favourites.

For Indian fans, Arjun Erigaisi will be the one to watch out. He has already shown good form in the World Rapid & Blitz Championships 2025 late last year, winning bronze medals in both events.

R Praggnanandhaa is among a group of leading chess players who have spoken out against scheduling conflicts involving two major events that are set to take place later this year. Besides ‘Pragg’, world No 3 Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are the other chess stars who have put their names in an open letter addressed to the Grand Chess Tour and the organisers of the Esports World Cup.

The Last Chance Qualifier for the Esports World Cup – in which chess makes its second appearance – takes place from 6 to 8 August with the main event then taking place from the 11th to the 15th.

The 11th season of the Grand Chess Tour, which gets underway in May in Poland, has events scheduled around the same time, with the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz taking place from 2-6 August and the Sinquefield Cup from the 10th to the 20th of that month.

‘Discussions have since stalled completely’

In the open letter addressed to the organisers, Caruana, Praggnanandhaa and the other players made it clear that a solution to the issue was a “clear and immediate priority” for them. The letter added that the issue had been flagged earlier, but changes to the schedule were yet to be made.

“Resolving the situation is now the players’ clear and immediate priority. Players and teams raised this issue with both organizers earlier and received replies, but no scheduling adjustment followed,” read the letter.

“Discussions have since stalled completely, leaving players with no visibility. With qualification paths already underway, the conflict is becoming concrete,” it added.

Here’s the full letter, shared by French Grandmaster Vachier-Lagrave:

Two major chess events. One calendar clash.
We’ve published an open letter calling for better coordination between the 2026 Grand Chess Tour and the Esports World Cup — so qualified players can compete in both. pic.twitter.com/jPq3jMU0Hu

— MVL (@Vachier_Lagrave) February 10, 2026

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.