What is the Candidates Tournament?

How it works

The eight players meet in a double round robin: everyone plays everyone twice, once with each color. That makes 14 rounds. The time control is the same as in the title match: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 more minutes, with 30 seconds a move from move 41.

Under the regulations, the prize fund is at least €700,000. How players get there is under How do you become world chess champion?

The 2026 tournament

It was played in Cyprus, with the first round on March 29 and the last on April 15, 2026. Javokhir Sindarov won with 10 points out of 14 and had first place sewn up with a round to spare. That's the highest score in a Candidates Tournament since 2013, when it took its current form.

The other seven were Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Matthias Blübaum, Wei Yi, Andrey Esipenko, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, and Hikaru Nakamura. Sindarov meets Gukesh Dommaraju in the 2026 title match in Geneva, starting November 24.

The Women's Candidates was played at the same time and place. Vaishali Rameshbabu of India won it with 8½ points out of 14, even though she was the lowest-rated of the eight.

Since 1950

The first Candidates Tournament was played in Budapest in 1950, with ten players. Eight of them came from a tournament in Saltsjöbaden, near Stockholm, in 1948: its top five, and three more when some of those invited didn't come. One of the three was Sweden's Gideon Ståhlberg, who played in both 1950 and 1953.

From 1965, the candidates were usually decided in knockout matches instead. Since 2013, it's been a tournament again, with eight players in a double round robin.