Candidates Tournament

Next Candidates Tournament: 2028

Next edition

2028, dates and host not announced

Players

8 in the Open, 8 in the Women's event

Format

Double round robin, 14 rounds

Winner gets

A World Championship match

2026 winners

Javokhir Sindarov, Vaishali Rameshbabu

Open paths to 2028

Grand Swiss, Total Chess Tour, World Cup, FIDE Circuit

The Candidates has run every two years since 2014, and the next edition is due in 2028. FIDE published the 2028 qualification paths for the Open and the Women's events on 14 July 2026. No player has a place yet, and the first places go out at the FIDE Grand Swiss on the Isle of Man, which runs from 10 to 25 May 2027.

The 2028 winner will challenge the world champion, and that title is decided first. D Gukesh defends it against Sindarov in Geneva from 22 November to 12 December 2026, with game 1 on 24 November.

How the Candidates Tournament works

Eight players play a double round robin: each player meets every other player twice, once with White and once with Black, for 14 rounds. A win scores 1 point, a draw half a point and a loss 0. The player with the most points wins the event and a World Championship match. The Women's Candidates uses the same format for its 8 players, and its winner plays the women's world champion.

The 2026 edition ran at the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort in Pegeia, near Paphos in Cyprus. The opening ceremony was on 28 March, round 1 on 29 March and round 14 on 15 April, with rest days after rounds 4, 7, 10 and 12. Games started at 15:30 local time, which is 6 PM in India. FIDE kept the last day, 16 April, for tiebreaks and the closing ceremony.

In the Open, each player had 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with 30 seconds added per move from move 41. The Women's event gave 90 minutes for 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest, with 30 seconds added from move 1. The Open regulations banned draws by agreement before Black's 40th move, so an earlier draw needed a threefold repetition or a stalemate, claimed through the arbiter.

The 2026 Open rules took 500 euros from the prize money of a player who reached the board after the start, and the Women's rules took 300 euros. A player more than 15 minutes late lost the game by default. A player who withdraws after half of the games loses the remaining games by default, and a withdrawal before that point annuls all of that player's results.

A tie for first place goes to a playoff of up to 3 stages. In stage 1, 2 tied players play a 2-game match at 15 minutes each plus 10 seconds per move, 3 to 6 tied players play a single round robin at that speed, and 7 or 8 play one at 10 minutes plus 5 seconds. Stage 2 repeats the format at 3 minutes plus 2 seconds for the players still level.

Stage 3 is a knockout of single games at 3 minutes plus 2 seconds, with a second game on reversed colours after a draw. A second draw leads to one sudden-death game. White gets 4 minutes plus 2 seconds per move, each player bids the time to take as Black, up to 4 minutes, and the lower bid plays Black. A draw in that last game counts as a win for Black.

Places 2 to 8 are decided by points, then by the Sonneborn-Berger score, which adds up the scores of the opponents a player beat and half the scores of the opponents the player drew. After that come the number of wins, the games between the tied players and a drawing of lots. After a playoff for first place, the players in it are ranked by their playoff results first. Prize money on equal points is shared equally, whatever the tiebreaks say.

The 2026 Open had a prize fund of at least 700,000 euros. The top 3 received 70,000, 45,000 and 25,000 euros, and every player earned 5,000 euros for each half-point. With 56 games and 112 half-points, the per-point money came to 560,000 euros. Sindarov scored 20 half-points, worth 100,000 euros, and with the first prize his total was 170,000 euros.

FIDE Candidates 2026 final standings

Javokhir Sindarov won unbeaten, with 6 wins and 8 draws, and was sure of first place with a round to spare. According to chess.com, his 10/14 is the highest score in the 8-player format, above the 9.5/14 that Ian Nepomniachtchi scored in Madrid in 2022. Sindarov had qualified by winning the 2025 World Cup, where he beat Wei Yi in the final.

Anish Giri finished second with 8.5/14 and became the first reserve for the title match. Under the match regulations, if Gukesh or Sindarov cannot play, Giri replaces him. Next in line are Fabiano Caruana and then the highest-rated player on the September 2026 rating list with at least 50 rated games from October 2025 to September 2026. Sindarov now plays Gukesh for the world title in Geneva.

Hikaru Nakamura took the rating spot, which went to the best average rating among players who met a minimum of 40 rated games. Magnus Carlsen had a higher average, but chess.com counted 16 of the 40 games for him in December 2025. Ding Liren, who lost the 2024 title match to Gukesh, had no route of his own, because FIDE ruled on 27 January 2024 that the match runner-up no longer qualifies automatically.

2028 Candidates qualification: 4 paths, 8 places

Eight players qualify, 2 from each path, and FIDE calls them "four equally weighted qualification pathways". FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich said the changes make the process "more balanced, transparent, and performance-based". As of 24 September 2026, no player has qualified.

The world champion cannot take a place. If a top-2 finisher at the Grand Swiss is the world champion, the third-placed player qualifies. For this rule, the FIDE qualification paths use the world champion as of 1 May 2027, while the Grand Swiss regulations use the champion as of 1 January 2027. A Tour or World Cup place held by the champion or by a player who has already qualified passes to third place in that event, and after that to the Circuit. A player who withdraws from the Candidates is replaced by the highest-ranked Circuit player who has not qualified.

The FIDE Grand Swiss 2027 has 2 places in the Open and 2 in the Women's section. FIDE announced a record prize fund of 900,000 US dollars for 170 players across both sections, and 100 of the Open players qualify by the January 2027 rating list for an 11-round Swiss. The Isle of Man also hosted the first Grand Swiss in 2019 and the 2023 edition. FIDE thanked the Scheinberg family for its long support, and Isai Scheinberg said the family intends to keep supporting top-level events on the Isle of Man in 2027 "and also the FIDE Candidates 2028".

The World Cup 2027 changes shape. The Open field grows from 206 to 224 players and the Women's from 103 to 128, and each event lasts 19 days, down from 27 days for the 2025 Open. Stage 1 is a 9-round Swiss at 45 minutes plus 30 seconds per move, played in 4 pools for the Open field and 2 pools for the women, and 16 players go through to classical knockout matches. Both finalists qualify, and the 2 events share 3.3 million US dollars in prizes, up from 2.67 million in 2025.

The Total Chess World Championship Tour is new to the cycle. Norway Chess developed it and FIDE approved it, and its pilot runs in Budapest from 10 to 20 November 2026 at the Anantara New York Palace Budapest Hotel. FIDE completed the 24-player field on 23 September 2026. It includes Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and 2 women, Bibisara Assaubayeva and Vaishali Rameshbabu. The full season starts in March 2027 and crowns a FIDE World Combined Champion from fast classical, rapid and blitz games. According to chess.com, the 2027 series has 4 tournaments and at least 2.7 million US dollars in prize money, with fast classical games at 45 minutes plus 30 seconds.

FIDE Circuit 2026-27 standings

The FIDE Circuit ranks players on their results in strong events across 2026 and 2027. A total is the sum of the 12 best event scores. To be ranked, a player needs at least 8 events, 5 of them in classical chess, and FIDE counts Total Chess events as classical.

Each event score is place points multiplied by a strength factor, k. The winner gets 11 place points, or 10 after a tiebreak, and the next places get 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2. The factor k is the average rating of the top 12 players in the event, minus 2500, divided by 100. At the 2026 Candidates that average was 2749.25, so k was 2.4925 and the win gave Sindarov 11 × 2.4925 = 27.42 points.

Faster events count for less. Scores from the World Rapid are multiplied by 0.8 and from the World Blitz by 0.6, other rapid events by 0.6 and other blitz events by 0.4. The loser of the Geneva match gets 8 place points, with k taken from that player's performance rating, multiplied by 1.5; a 2750 performance, for example, would give 8 × 2.5 × 1.5 = 30 points.

Sindarov took the lead after the Naroditsky Memorial in Charlotte, FIDE reported on 4 August 2026. If he wins in Geneva, he becomes world champion and leaves the race, because the champion cannot qualify. Wesley So, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and R Praggnanandhaa follow him, with every 2027 event still to come.

What changed for 2028

1. 1.The rating spot is gone. In 2026 it sent Hikaru Nakamura to Cyprus.
2. 2.The World Cup gives 2 places from its 2027 edition, down from 3 in 2025.
3. 3.The Total Chess World Championship Tour 2026-27 is a new path with 2 places.
4. 4.The FIDE Circuit keeps 2 places, now from one ranking over 2026 and 2027, where the 2026 cycle gave 1 place for each year.
5. 5.The World Cup opens with a Swiss stage and ends with a knockout for 16 players.
6. 6.The loser of the 2026 title match gets no direct place in 2028.

The rating spot was controversial even before 2026, chess.com wrote. To reach the 40-game minimum, Nakamura played events in Louisiana, Iowa and Washington and the Maritime Chess Festival in Canada.

FIDE Women's Candidates 2026 final standings

India's Vaishali Rameshbabu scored 8.5/14 to win, finishing half a point clear of Kazakhstan's Bibisara Assaubayeva, and earned a title match against the women's world champion, Ju Wenjun of China. FIDE had not announced the dates or host of that match by 24 September 2026.

The Women's Candidates paid 300,000 euros: 28,000, 17,000 and 8,600 euros to the top 3, plus 2,200 euros for each half-point. Vaishali's 17 half-points were worth 37,400 euros, which made 65,400 euros with the first prize. FIDE listed a combined prize fund of at least 1,000,000 euros for the 2 tournaments.

Vaishali qualified by winning the 2025 Women's Grand Swiss in Samarkand, and Divya Deshmukh by winning the 2025 Women's World Cup in Batumi. Koneru Humpy also qualified from that World Cup and withdrew, and on 22 March 2026 FIDE named Anna Muzychuk, the next unqualified player in the 2024-25 Women's Events series, as her replacement.

Women's Candidates 2028 qualification

The women's route through the Women's Events series, which sent Assaubayeva to Cyprus, is gone, and the Women's World Cup drops from 3 places to 2. The Women's Circuit gets 2 places in the FIDE announcement of 14 July 2026, while an older FIDE page on the Women's Circuit, updated on 30 June 2026, lists 1.

Bibisara Assaubayeva leads the Women's Circuit with 59.76 points, ahead of Zhu Jiner on 39.83, Vaishali on 29.7, Tan Zhongyi on 26.58 and Harika Dronavalli on 20.55, in the Liquipedia tally of 24 September 2026.

The Women's Grand Prix 2026-27 has 20 players, and each plays 3 of its 6 events, all 10-player round robins. Every event pays at least 80,000 euros, with 18,000 euros and 130 points for the winner, and a further 120,000 euros goes to the final series standings. Fourteen players have qualified, among them Ju Wenjun, Tan Zhongyi, Zhu Jiner, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Divya Deshmukh, Koneru Humpy, Vaishali and Kateryna Lagno, and the organisers of the events nominate the other 6. FIDE has not yet announced the dates or venues of the 6 events.

Indian players in the 2028 race

Four Indian players are in the top 20 of the Open Circuit: R Praggnanandhaa is 4th with 64.65 points, Arjun Erigaisi 8th with 36.34, Nihal Sarin 16th with 21.76 and Aravindh Chithambaram 17th with 20.63. D Gukesh is outside the Circuit top 40 and defends his title in Geneva. If he loses that match, the Circuit gives him the points for second place. Praggnanandhaa and Erigaisi also play the Total Chess pilot in Budapest in November 2026.

In the women's race, Vaishali is 3rd in the Women's Circuit, has a title match against Ju Wenjun to play and is one of the 2 women in the Total Chess pilot field. Harika Dronavalli is 5th in the Circuit. Divya Deshmukh, Koneru Humpy and Vaishali are all in the Women's Grand Prix 2026-27, where the top 2 qualify.

Candidates history, 1950 to 2026

The first Candidates Tournament was played in Budapest from 11 April to 18 May 1950, with 10 players in a double round robin. David Bronstein and Isaac Boleslavsky tied for first, Bronstein won the playoff, and he then drew his title match with Mikhail Botvinnik, who kept the title.

Tournaments followed in 1953, when Vasily Smyslov won a 15-player event of 28 games each, in Amsterdam in 1956, won by Smyslov again, in Yugoslavia in 1959, won by Mikhail Tal, and in Curaçao in 1962, where Tigran Petrosian won unbeaten. Candidates matches took over from 1965, and the last match cycle ended in Kazan in 2011 with a win for Boris Gelfand. FIDE brought the tournament back in London in 2013, 51 years after Curaçao.

London 2013 used 8 players in a double round robin, the shape the event still has. Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik both lost in the last round and finished level on points, and Carlsen won on the second tiebreak, the number of wins. D Gukesh won in Toronto in 2024 with 9/14 and became the youngest winner in the history of the event. Toronto was the first Candidates in North America and the first time the Open and Women's tournaments ran at the same time.

Aleksandra Goryachkina won the 2019 Women's Candidates in Kazan. The 2022-23 women's cycle used knockout matches, and Lei Tingjie beat Tan Zhongyi in the final. Tan Zhongyi then won in Toronto in 2024 with 9/14, 1.5 points ahead of Koneru Humpy.

Candidates Tournament FAQ

Facts on this page were checked on 24 September 2026 against the FIDE regulations for the 2026 Candidates and Women's Candidates, the FIDE 2028 qualification paths, FIDE news, the official 2026 Candidates site, chess.com reports and the Liquipedia tally of the FIDE Circuit.