Magnificent Eights: who will win the Candidates and Contenders tournament

The FIDE Candidates and Candidates tournaments will be held from March 28 to April 16 in Cyprus, near Paphos. The winners of the competition will have the right to play in the matches for the world chess crown among men and women, respectively. Experts call American Fabiano Caruana the main favorites of the open tournament, and Chinese representatives Zhu Jin'er and Tan Zhongyi in the women's tournament. Russia will be represented at the competition by Andrey Esipenko, Alexandra Goryachkina and Ekaterina Lagno, who will challenge recognized leaders. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

Two favorites

It seems that there is no more fair format to determine the most worthy one, the one who should throw down the gauntlet to the world champion. Eight grandmasters who have passed a tough selection screen play each other in two rounds with both colors (14 games). This eliminates any chance, showing not only the strength and preparation for a particular game, but also the stability of the candidate at a distance.

In the new era of the chess crown, the candidates tournament in this format will be held for the eighth time for men. It has previously been won by Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand, Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana, Jan Nepomniachtchi and Gukesh Dommaraju twice. After the triumph in Toronto, the representative of India defeated the 17th world champion Ding Liren in Singapore in a tight fight. Soon, Gukesh will recognize his opponent in the first defense of the chess crown.

All experts call American Fabiano Caruana the main favorite of the open tournament. However, the Miami native was in this status at five consecutive previous candidate competitions. He managed to win only in Berlin in 2018, after which he lost the championship match to Magnus Carlsen in a tiebreak in London.

"Fabiano is really the strongest of the eight in terms of class and stability," Rafael Vaganyan, USSR champion and winner of two World Chess Olympiads (1984, 1986), told Izvestia. — But he's obviously not doing well in the last candidates tournaments. And according to a similar scenario. Fabi starts well, but then they lose one game and he gets discouraged. It's more a matter of psychology. I think his main opponents will be Pragnanandha and Sindarov. The latter has gained fantastic form and may well compete for victory.

Rameshbabu Pragnanandha will be playing the second challenger tournament of his career. Two years ago, the Indian finished fifth, but he impressed with his mature game at the age of 18. Now he has become noticeably more experienced: last year he won the super tournament in Wijk aan Zee, and in the middle of 2025 he rose as close as possible to the 2,800 mark. Recently, Prague's rating has declined — in Cyprus, it starts only at number six.

"His results have deteriorated over the past six months, but Pragnanandha has experience leading candidates to the tournament," Russian national team coach Vladimir Potkin told Izvestia. — For sure, there will be a strong team of seconds again. Probably led by Peter Svidler. Plus, there is definitely an additional motivation to play a World Championship match with your compatriot.

"If Nakamura wins, it will be a mockery of chess"

Russian national team coach Vladimir Potkin on the Cyprus tournament and Andrey Esipenko's chances

Russians' chances

Yang Nepomnyashchy calls Wei Yi another favorite besides Caruan and Pragnanandha. He is quite strong when playing black (loses little) and creative when playing white. The Chinese grandmaster, like Javokhir Sindarov, Andrey Esipenko and Matthias Blubaum, will make his debut at the candidates tournament. The Russian will have only the seventh starting number, and only the obvious outsider Blubaum will have a lower rating.

— Yesipenko has been playing great in the last six months, he had a wonderful 2025 World Cup, – continued Rafael Vartanyan. — I wouldn't be surprised if he could surprise you. In general, such a line-up has been selected that much will depend on the start. If someone gets a +2 in the beginning, it will be difficult to stop them.

Esipenko himself notes that he will try to make it easier for the candidates tournament, without thinking about the fact that this is the main tournament of his career. This is the advice of Jan Nepomnyashchy, who won the candidates tournament twice and finished third in 2024.

"This is reasonable advice," the Russian grandmaster emphasized to Izvestia. — I will try very hard to just focus on high-quality moves and make the most of my achievements. I will tell you after the tournament whether I will be able to completely abstract myself from unnecessary thoughts and have fun.

Esipenko will start black with Sindarov, and in the second round he will play white with Nakamura. The latter is the rating favorite. For the experienced 38-year-old American, this will be the fourth attempt to qualify for the crown match. In 2016, he was the penultimate, in 2022 - the fourth, in 2024 — the second. Hikaru's disadvantage is that he rarely plays tournaments with classic controls, focusing on online.

In parallel with the open competition, a women's tournament will be held, which will determine the opponent of Chinese Ju Wenjun in the championship match. Russians Alexandra Goryachkina and Katerina Lagno, as well as Divya Deshmukh, Vaishali Rameshbabu (both from India), Zhu Jin'er, Tan Zhongyi (both from China), Bibisara Asaubayeva (Kazakhstan) and Ukrainian Anna Muzychuk, who at the last moment replaced Indian chess player Hampi Konera, who withdrew from the tournament due toDue to the tense situation in the Middle East, a drone previously attacked a military base in Cyprus.

The rating favorite is Zhu Jin'er, who is fourth in the women's Live rating (2554.5). Next up are Tan Zhongyi (2535), who confidently won the 2024 Candidates Tournament in Toronto, and Alexandra Goryachkina (2534). Our compatriot won the 2019 candidates tournament and has long deserved a chance at a second match for the chess crown (she won the 2023 World Cup and the 2025 Rapid World Cup).

— I hope that Sasha Goryachkina will win the women's tournament, — Yan Nepomnyashchy summed up the "Sport-Express".

The prize fund of the tournaments in Cyprus will amount to € 1 million: 700 thousand for the open tournament and 300 thousand for the women's tournament.