GM Javokhir Sindarov is in the final stretch, with three rounds left in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. All games of round 11 ended in draws, leaving Sindarov two points ahead after holding GM Fabiano Caruana. GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu came close to scoring the only decisive game against GM Matthias Bluebaum, who achieved his 10th draw. GM Anish Giri didn’t make the most of an isolated-pawn position against GM Andrey Esipenko and GM Hikaru Nakamura made the quickest draw against GM Wei Yi.Â
GM Vaishali Rameshbabu trapped GM Aleksandra Goryachkina’s rook in the center of the board to score her fourth 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidates win in her last six games. The lowest seed’s lead grew to a full point, after second-placed GMs Zhu Jiner and Anna Muzychuk were held to draws by GMs Kateryna Lagno and Divya Deshmukh respectively. GM Tan Zhongyi had a great chance to score her first win, against GM Bibisara Assaubayeva, but rushed at the key moment and drew in 102 moves.
Round 12 is on Sunday, April 12, starting at 8:45 a.m. ET / 14:45 CEST / 6:15 p.m. IST.
FIDE Candidates: Bulletproof Sindarov Is In Final Stretch
Nobody was able to win a game in round 11, which suits Sindarov just fine.
Candidates Round 11 Results
The Uzbek star continues to lead by two points, and time is running out.
Candidates Standings After Round 11
The tournament continues in dreamlike fashion for Sindarov, with nobody able to put even a dent in his two-point lead. But it wasn’t easy. He told FM Mike Klein this game against Caruana was “the toughest game of this tournament… Fabi was outplaying me and probably I played one of the best defensive games of my life.”
In his second direct encounter with the leader, Caruana played the near-novelty 11.Be3 in the Catalan opening, but Sindarov hardly blinked. He responded immediately, and the players continued blitzing until move 17, when it was Caruana who was the first to think for five minutes.
If Sindarov won the opening battle, it was still the American who took over in the middle and endgame. He regained a sacrificed pawn with the advantage, but Sindarov proved once again to have skin of steel. GM Dejan Bojkov has analyzed the game below.
Caruana told FIDE, “I didn’t really prepare for the last two games. Just played the safest line, I thought it would end in a draw pretty quickly. But I got some pressure, felt like I got serious winning chances at some point.” Although he considered it too late for himself to catch up, he said he hoped to still make an impact on the tournament once he got the advantage.
Giri, his closest pursuer, hasn’t gotten any closer. He was unable to inflict damage with the white pieces against last-place Esipenko, though the Dutchman did have play against an isolated pawn. Commentators GM Judit Polgar and GM David Howell were critical of his 30.Nxe6, capturing the “big pawn” on e6.
Of course, if the anti-positional move had worked, one could be tempted to draw “genius” parallels to GM Bobby Fischer’s similar capture of 22.Nxd7! against GM Tigran Petrosian in the 1971 Candidates. But the game didn’t last much longer.
The only missed win was by Praggnanandhaa against Bluebaum, and he had more than one chance against the German’s Petroff Defense. Pragg achieved a decisive attack two times, but when the time came to put away the game, he missed 18.Qf5! and, later, 34.Rxf7. Neither move was trivial, but finding either of them would have ended the game in 1-0.
Nakamura vs. Wei was the first game to end, even including Nakamura’s half-hour think before acquiescing to the half-point. A solid Catalan Opening ended in a threefold repetition by move 22.
Nakamura told Klein that he’s been out of contention since round five. In the same interview, he hinted at an impending end to his classical chess career: “Luckily, I’m closer to the end of my career than the beginning, so it’s not a big deal.”
Luckily, I’m closer to the end of my career than the beginning, so it’s not a big deal.
—Hikaru Nakamura
He clarified that although he’ll slow down with classical chess—”worst-case” he will play at least one more Olympiad—he will still participate in faster time controls. So, whatever the case, we won’t see a complete retirement from chess any time soon.
You can watch Nakamura’s recap video below.
In the three remaining games, Sindarov will have the white pieces twice. The big question will be how hard Nakamura will push with the black pieces, knowing he can no longer mathematically win the event.
Candidates Round 12 Pairings
FIDE Women’s Candidates: Vaishali Scores Crucial Win
Vaishali scored the only win of round 11 of the Women’s Candidates.
Women’s Candidates Round 11 Results
That means she’s taken a potentially huge one-point lead with just three rounds to go.Â
Women’s Candidates Standings After Round 11
Vaishali’s rise in Cyprus has been nowhere near as meteoric as Sindarov’s, but she’s now taken a full-point lead just when it matters most.
Goryachkina 0-1 Vaishali
“It looked like a slow position for a very long time,” said Vaishali of her game against the winner of the 2019 Women’s Candidates, but there were already tricks bubbling below the surface before Goryachkina made what her opponent called “the most natural move in the position” and was instantly lost.
How easy the trap had been to fall into was illustrated by the great Judit Polgar herself suggesting the move, and adding, “I pulled her into it!”
Judit suggests 30.Bc4? — David, seeing the eval bar plunge, works out it’s a blunder as the rook gets trapped — but Goryachkina plays it anyway! Women’s leader Vaishali is set to score an incredibly important win: https://t.co/dkxgo4JHpy#FIDECandidates pic.twitter.com/tqhKlTyrcn
— chess24 (@chess24com) April 11, 2026
Black’s rook was trapped in the middle of the board, and it was all over bar the shouting.Â
That win proved enough for Vaishali to pull away from the chasing pack, and the gap could even have grown by more than half a point.Â
One of the players in second place, Muzychuk, ended up in a knight vs. bishop minor-piece endgame against Lagno that recalled the way Goryachkina had beaten Divya in the same innocuous position in the previous round. This time, however, Muzychuk held the draw with little fuss.
The other player in second place, Zhu, for a long time looked to have a promising position against Divya, but got into trouble around the time control and could have been tested if Divya had pushed with 42…Rg8!. Instead, after 42…Rd8?!, the game fizzled out into a draw fast.
The theme of missed chances continued in the final game. Former Women’s World Champion Tan has had a hugely disappointing tournament, losing three games and winning none, but she could have put a huge dent in Assaubayeva’s chances.
First she missed a chance to take over with 18.Nc6!, playing 18.Bg3?! instead.
In a way you can’t criticize Tan too harshly as she kept a pawn-edge deep into an endgame and, although the pawns were on only one side of the board, she got a chance to win when Assaubayeva grabbed a poisoned pawn. Alas, Tan spent under two of her remaining 10 minutes to choose the wrong square for her rook, and though the game stretched until move 102, she never got another chance.
Round 12 may prove critical, as Vaishali has the white pieces against one of her two closest rivals. A loss for the Indian GM could mean chaos for the standings, while a win would be a huge step toward overall victory.
FIDE Women’s Candidates: Round 12 PairingsÂ
Colin McGourty contributed to this report.
You can watch the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament on Chess24’s YouTube and Twitch channels. The games can also be followed from our Events Page.Â
The FIDE Candidates Tournament is the most important FIDE tournament of the year. In the Open and Women’s events, eight players play each other twice for the right to challenge the FIDE World Champions Gukesh Dommaraju and Ju Wenjun to a match for the title.
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