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.

Indian chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa has sent a strong message ahead of the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. Over the past few years, Praggnanandhaa, along with players like D Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi, has led India’s rise in the chess world.

The 20-year-old recently qualified for the prestigious Candidates Tournament after winning the FIDE Circuit 2025 with 115.17 points. He will be the only Indian player in the Open section of this year’s Candidates.

Speaking to Chess.com, Praggnanandhaa admitted that most top players already know each other’s playing styles, which makes it important to keep bringing new ideas on the board.

“All of them know my game, but the trick lies in coming up with novelty each time. Otherwise, it’s not possible to keep winning against the world’s best,” Praggnanandhaa was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile,
Praggnanandhaa is currently in the recovery phase after witnessing a dip in his performance last year. He did well in the first half of the season, but couldn’t carry the same momentum in the second half. He also slipped out of the FIDE top 10 rankings.

Gukesh wants Pragg to win

The FIDE Candidates Tournament 2026 will take place from March 28 to April 16 at the Cap St Georges Hotel & Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus. The event will run alongside the Women’s Candidates Tournament.

The competition will feature eight of the world’s top players and will follow a double round-robin format, meaning each player will face every other participant twice across 14 rounds. Praggnanandhaa will play alongside some big names like Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, Wei Yi, Javokhir Sindarov, Matthias Blübaum, and Andrey Esipenko.

The winner of the tournament will earn the right to challenge reigning world champion D Gukesh in the World Chess Championship 2026, apart from winning €70,000 (Rs 74 lakh) prize money.

Meanwhile, Gukesh also wants an all-Indian match at the World Championship this year. “Personally, I would like to face Pragg. It would be an Indian clash, and it would be great for the Indian fans,” Gukesh recently told Chessbase India.

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.