The 2026 Candidates Tournament starts this Saturday, March 28th the takes place over the following 20 days as the chess world looks to crown the next challenger for the World Chess Championship, with the winner looking to take down current world champion Gukesh Dommaraju of India.
The Candidates Tournament is arguably the most prestigious tournament in all of chess, as it's made up of an elite field of eight players who all had to qualify their way into the tournament through various avenues.
Some players qualified through the FIDE World Cup, others through the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament, two more being FIDE season-long circuit winners, and one final spot for the highest active average ELO rating over the last six months.
Kalshi is offering a prediction market for who will win the Candidates Tournament. As an amateur 900 ELO player myself with an analytics background, but also an avid fan of the game, I guess I'm qualified to provide my analysis and picks for the 2026 Candidates Tournament. If you want to trade on this market, be sure to use our Kalshi promo code to get started.
The Candidates
1. Hikaru Nakamura
World Rank: 2
FIDE Rating: 2810
Qualified: Highest Average Rating
American Hikaru Nakamura is best known as a chess streamer and memer, who really brought chess to a new level of attention during the pandemic years through a set of social media streams on Twitch and Kick, as well as a YouTube channel that has over 3 million subscribers
That shouldn't downplay Nakamura's accomplishments as an over-the-board chess player who has achieved one of the top-10 all-time highest ratings in classical chess.
Nakamura is self-admittedly at the tail end of his classical chess career at age 38, and took a somewhat controversial path (to some, not me) in qualifying for the Candidates Tournament. Knowing this could be potentially his last chance at the Candidates Tournament, Nakamura took advantage of the average rating placement to earn his spot in the field.
That doesn't sound controversial until you hear how he did it. Instead of playing in elite tournaments with grandmasters everywhere, Nakamura knew that all he had to do was keep his high rating and qualify by playing the minimum 40 games in the time frame, so he went around North America playing in smaller, more local tournaments with softer fields where he knew it was all but guaranteed to maintain a high enough ELO rating to earn the spot.
Some people classified it as "farming rating," but in reality, his rating is only three points higher than when he started playing in the local events. All he did was play by the rules FIDE set out to qualify for the tournament in the safest manner possible. Nobody is going to argue Nakamura isn't one of the best players in the world.
Nakamura, despite mainly playing online chess formats that have shorter time controls, is clearly one of the favorites to win.
2. Fabiano Caruana
World Rank: 3
FIDE Rating: 2795
Qualified: 2024 FIDE Circuit Winner
Caruana, the third-ranked player in the world and the second American on this list, it can be argued is the favorite to win the tournament.
In fact, Caruana has won this tournament before, taking home the 2018 edition and earning the right to battle then-world champion, and still current best player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, where the two played to a draw in every single classical game before Carlsen retained the world championship in the tie-break rapid games.
Caruana has also been very close to winning several other editions of the candidates, placing as runner up in 2016 and ranked fourth in the most recent Candidates Tournament in 2024, but would have actually won the tournament had he beaten Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 14th and final round, but the two ultimately played to a draw.
3. Wei Yi
World Rank: 7
FIDE Rating: 2754
Qualified: 2025 FIDE World Cup Runner Up
Chinese candidate Wei Yi has had an incredible run of form over the past two years, producing several unbeaten or near-unbeaten tournament results. In 2024, he won the prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament, dropping just two games, winning six, and drawing five.
In the 2025 edition, he didn't win the title, but had an undefeated tournament with 12 draws and a win, and in the 2025 FIDE World Cup, he placed runner-up after a string of 27 unbeaten games, only to lose to fellow candidate Javokhir Sindarov in the last game of a four-game set.
The question for Yi is, can he win enough, because too many draws won't get you to the top. Each of the last five Candidates Tournaments have been won with at least four wins, including five wins in the past four editions of the tournament.
4. Anish Giri
World Rank: 8
FIDE Rating: 2753
Qualified: 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss Winner
Anish Giri has high hopes for the Candidates Tournament after two previous appearances. In 2016, he made his debut in this contest, drawing all 14 of his games, which, while not losing, isn't going to help you win the tournament. Giri finished sixth in his Candidates debut.
Four years later, he again qualified and fared better, grabbing four wins to go along with three losses, which ultimately put him in third place.
Giri won the 2023 Tata Steel Chess Tournament and finished joint first two other times, losing in tiebreaks, including most recently in 2024, the year that Wei Yi won it. Giri continued his climb back up into the top 10 by winning the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss without dropping a game. That pushed him back into the top five in the world before settling into his current eighth-ranked position in the world.
Giri has been described as extremely solid and fantastic with opening preparation. He's not going to be in a ton of bad positions, but the key is converting his good positions into wins. If he does, he can absolutely win this tournament.
5. Javokhir Sindarov
World Rank: 12
FIDE Rating: 2745
Qualified: 2025 FIDE World Cup Winner
Sindarov is appropriately a lot of people's dark horse pick to win it all, and it's certainly possible, as the 20-year-old player from Uzbekistan has made an impressive, almost linear climb up the ratings since early 2016, when he hovered just below 2400 to his current rating of 2745.
Sindarov won the 2025 FIDE World Cup in November, just four months ago, then placed runner-up to fellow countryman Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Tournament, which featured a time control identical to the Candidates Tournament for the first time.
At the peak of his game right now, this reminds me of Giri's climb in the early 2010's to his near-peak for the 2016 Candidates Tournament, where Giri ultimately finished sixth.
But I expect more from Sindarov, who has a much different playstyle from 2016 Anish Giri and is more willing to push the envelope with some aggression and risks. That gives him big upside, but also might require him to find the perfect moves in several key spots, where if he doesn't, the game may be lost.
6. Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa
World Rank: 13
FIDE Rating: 2741
Qualified: 2025 FIDE Circuit Winner
Praggnanandhaa, or Pragg for short, placed fifth in the 2024 edition of the Candidates Tournament, winning three games. However, all three wins came against the two lowest-rated opponents. Pragg's three losses came against eventual world Champion Gukesh Dommaraju, as well as Nakamura and Caruana, who he'll have to face again this go around.
Pragg has been billed as one of the favorites to win the tournament thanks to his extremely consistent top-level play over the two-year cycle. That's reflected in his qualification method as the 2025 FIDE Circuit Winner, where Pragg had four tournament results of first or tied first and two others second or tied second.
The three tournaments he won outright also had three of the top eleven tournament average ratings of the season, including three of the top six tournaments that either didn't include world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen or weren't the World Championship match itself.
However, Pragg has had a recent dip in form, dropping more than 40 rating points over the past six months with relatively mundane results in the FIDE World Cup and Tata Steel Tournaments that Sindarov had top-two placings in.
When Pragg is at the top of his game, he's more than capable of winning this, especially with strong showings throughout the first half of 2025, including besting Caruana in multiple tournament standings. But after recent lackluster results, will he be at the top of his game?
7. Matthias Blübaum
World Rank: 32
FIDE Rating: 2698
Qualified: 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss Runner Up
Blübaum had a surprising runner-up finish in the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss, which qualified him for the Candidates Tournament for the first time in his chess career. In that tournament, Blübaum defeated the two highest-rated players entering the contest, Pragg and Arjun Erigaisi.
Blübaum's play with the black pieces, in particular, will give higher-ranked opponents fits and could lead to some potential upsets despite playing with the disadvantage, as the player playing with the white pieces has the advantage by getting to move first.
It's extremely unlikely Blübaum wins, but he could play a spoiler role in someone's quest for glory.
8. Andrey Esipenko
World Rank: 33
FIDE Rating: 2698
Qualified: 2025 FIDE World Cup Third Place
Similarly to Blübaum, it's unlikely Esipenko wins the Candidates Tournament after securing his place in the contest through a third-place finish at the FIDE World Cup. This is the second cycle that the third-place finisher at the World Cup gets direct entry into the Candidates Tournament, and in the 2024 cycle, which was filled by Nijat Abasov, who actually finished fourth as the third-place finisher, Magnus Carlsen has no interest in vying for the world title he once dominated.
Abasov placed dead last in the 2024 Candidates, and I fear that could be where Esipenko is destined for in this cycle.
Per a Gothamchess video, Esipenko has just two wins in 24 total classical chess games against the other seven players in this year's field. That clearly puts him at the bottom of my personal list, but that's not to take anything away from him as an elite chess Grandmaster. It's just that the rest of the field, in particular the top six players, are a level above.
The Candidates Tournament is a tournament like no other, and players in their first Candidates Tournaments tend to finish midpack at best. A top-half finish would be a win for Esipenko.
If you want to trade on the 2026 Candidates Tournament at Kalshi, sign up using our Kalshi promo code. This prediction market app is legal in most states and offers a variety of unique markets.
The Candidates Best Picks and Predictions
To Win the Candidates Tournament
I built a model using past players' ratings, ratings gains and losses leading up to the tournament, age, experience, and more. I trained it on games from the past eight Candidates Tournaments — all the ones with the same format as this year's tournament. I then had it simulate this year's tournament dynamically, updating each player's ratings for wins, losses, or draws against each other.
According to the model, the best value lies in that second ratings tier after the two American players, where Anish Giri is a buy to win.
Giri has performed at an elite level for over a decade now, and as I talked about in Giri's section, he'll mostly be in positions to draw or win. He has shown the ability to convert opportunities and is the clear value for me in this tournament.
Giri is currently trading at around 9¢ to win the Candidates Tournament, which, after accounting for fees, will get you a price equivalent to about +1012 in American odds. At Polymarket, he's trading at 10¢ or exactly +900 equivalent in American odds.
Recommended Buy: Anish Giri at anything longer than +825 equivalent in American odds.
To NOT Win the Candidates Tournament
On the flip side, I think the clear fade is Javokhir Sindarov, who has shot up the rating like a cannon. History has taught us that these players, while at a peak and playing amazing, are sometimes punching above their current rating and become good fade candidates.
Sindarov is on an absolute tear, but the World Cup win and Tata Steel tournament didn't include Caruana or Nakamura, and the knockout style of the World Cup makes it so that upsets can happen more frequently.
The players who qualify through the World Cup path have traditionally not fared quite as well as through other paths, with only Sergey Karjakin finishing among the top two positions over 14 entrants through this path in the eight previous Candidates Tournaments using this format.
Sindarov has set the chess world on fire, but that's precisely the time to sell high.
I have him this, at best, about one in nine times, so anything better than -800 equivalent in American odds is worth a buy. At the time of this writing, he's trading on Kalshi at about -556 in American odds.
Recommended Sell: Javokhir Sindarov at anything better than -800 equivalent in American odds.
The Americans: Join the Fun
The two American players, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana are going to be fun to root for, especially Nakamura, whose YouTube and Kick channels I love to watch as I try to build my own chess skills and, frankly, just be entertained by his memes while he streams.
I actually cheated a little bit in the section above with the model, because Nakamura's FIDE Rating of 2810 puts him as the favorite based on rating, but the market isn't pricing him that way.
A lot of that is because Nakamura hasn't played a ton of classical over-the-board chess in recent years as he focuses on his streaming career, which is how he makes his living. Still, he plays online chess with faster time controls, so it's not like he's not playing chess at all.
The general consensus, both by the trading market and by elite chess players, is that Caruana is the second-best player in the world after Magnus Carlsen, which would put Nakamura behind Caruana, meaning Nakamura's rating is a bit inflated.
I had the model deflate Nakamura's rating to optimally match the market across the eight candidates, and no matter whether I use the base model with no rating deflation for Nakamura or the ratings deflated version, I get value on Giri to win and Sindarov to not win.
But the interesting part comes with Nakamura himself on which model to use. If we trust his 2810 FIDE Rating, then the model I built has Nakamura winning 35% of the time, meaning both Polymarket and Kalshi actually have some moderate value on Nakamura with +356 odds equivalent at Polymarket and +335 at Kalshi.
And since I want to trade on an American to win the Candidates Tournament, I'll buy Nakamura as well, just for the memes.
The Candidates Live Trading
Since the Candidates Tournament is a 14-round event with one round per day and gap days, that means there's plenty of opportunity to look at live results and continue to buy or sell positions based on how the tournament is going.
If and when any such buy or sell scenarios occur, I'll have updates to this piece with any positions added or sold.
