GM Fabiano Caruana ended his curse against GM Hikaru Nakamura when it mattered most by battling to a six-hour win in round one of the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. There were two more wins, with GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu surprising GM Anish Giri in the opening and following up flawlessly, while GM Javokhir Sindarov entered the top 10 after tricking GM Andrey Esipenko to win a position he expected to lose. The only draw was between Candidates debutants GMs Matthias Bluebaum and Wei Yi.
Meanwhile the 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidates began with four draws but was anything but quiet. GM Aleksandra Goryachkina missed a knockout blow against GM Kateryna Lagno, GM Vaishali Rameshbabu held on despite huge time trouble against GM Bibisara Assaubayeva, and GM Zhu Jiner misplayed a game she started brilliantly against GM Tan Zhongyi. Even the calmest game saw GM Anna Muzychuk fearful after being surprised early on by GM Divya Deshmukh.
Round two is on Monday, March 30, starting at 8:45 a.m. ET / 14:45 CEST / 6:15 p.m. IST.
FIDE Candidates: Caruana Defeats The Top Seed
We had an explosive start to the FIDE Candidates Tournament, with only one draw.
Candidates Round 1 Results
That meant the field was already split, with three early leaders.
Candidates Standings After Round 1
The recent trend in top-level classical chess has been for incredible fighting spirit and a remarkable number of decisive games—almost gone are the quick GM draws that used to be a major factor in any elite event. Any suspicion that might change when stakes were highest was soon dispelled as the FIDE Candidates began in Pegeia, Cyprus, with eight fighting games. Even the first to finish had been sharp.
Bluebaum ½-½ Wei Yi
German number-two Bluebaum’s status as underdog has led to his achieving meme status, with the internet cheering him on to a 14/14 triumph already known as the #GreatBluebaumSweep.
Matthias Bluebaum has secured a +0.45 advantage in game one of the Candidates and is on pace for 14/14.#GreatBluebaumSweep pic.twitter.com/NIGdC5inhh
— gregory conway (@gregorymconway) March 28, 2026
Alas, it didn’t survive round one, with Bluebaum telling FM Mike Klein: “It seems like I already ruined the #GreatBluebaumSweep, so now the only sweep I can do is 14 draws instead of 14 wins, but let’s see!”
“I already ruined the #GreatBluebaumSweep!”#FIDECandidates pic.twitter.com/yCElRZtXLS
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 29, 2026
Bluebaum unveiled a novelty on move 10 and had over a one-hour lead on the clock by move 16, but any chances for a small edge slipped away, and 21…Qd7! from Wei offered a rook sacrifice to force a draw. Bluebaum had nothing better than to accept.
That was the only draw in the Open event.
Sindarov 1-0 Esipenko
Before this game began, Sindarov, at 20 the youngest player in the event, posted a four-leaf clover.
🍀
— Javokhir Sindarov (@GMJSindarov) March 29, 2026
That symbol of luck would later prove apt, as after playing 27.Bd1 he found himself with six minutes to Esipenko’s 30. He later commented, “At that moment I was thinking, OK, probably this is my last chance. If I don’t get some chances, he will just outplay me without any chance!”
The luck turned for Sindarov as Esipenko played what he thought was a winning move, taking on f3, only to run into some devilish tricks. As the Uzbek World Cup winner put it: “Today I don’t play very well but after he gives me chances, I think I played really very well. Somehow I wake up today in the game, because before I think I’m just sleeping and playing very badly!”
Somehow I wake up today in the game, because before I think I’m just sleeping and playing very badly.
—Javokhir Sindarov
Sindarov’s play was very convincing at the end, although there was some brinkmanship on the clock, with both players getting down to their final seconds—there’s no 30 seconds added per move until move 41.
Sindarov survives a wild mutual time scramble vs. Esipenko and emerges with a completely won position! https://t.co/2NYtcyxAsl pic.twitter.com/FsyaRkG6Sl
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 29, 2026
It’s only been a year and a half since Sindarov was still outside the top 50, but he’s now climbed into the top 10 on the live rating list.
The cleanest win of the day, meanwhile, was for Praggnanandhaa.
Praggnanandhaa 1-0 Giri
It takes a lot to surprise Giri in the opening, but that’s just what Praggnanandhaa managed to do by playing the Grand Prix Attack, an opening favored by club players for its very straightforward plan of pushing the f-pawn and giving checkmate. Caveman tactics are generally unlikely to work against a theoretician as renowned as the Dutch number-one, but Giri decided not to play what he’d recommended in his Chessable course on the Sicilian.
Pragg just testing Giri if he knows his own Chessable course. But Anish deviated from his course going …exf5 instead of castle now. Good prep by Pragg! #candidates2026 #chessable pic.twitter.com/p8a0iP998k
— Niclas Huschenbeth (@GM_Huschenbeth) March 29, 2026
It wasn’t that Praggnanandhaa was winning out of the opening, but Giri found himself forced to castle on the opposite wing to his opponent. His position was shaky, though tantalizingly close to equality for much of the game until things fell apart in the run-up to the time control. Praggnanandhaa didn’t put a foot wrong and brilliantly converted his advantage when given the chance.
The most anticipated game of the day, meanwhile, didn’t disappoint.
Caruana 1-0 Nakamura
This all-U.S. clash had been traumatic for Caruana in the last couple of years, as he’d lost five of their last 12 classical games. He tried something new, going for 1.Nf3, and although Nakamura said he wasn’t “caught off-guard,” he did initially drop behind on the clock. When Caruana began to burn up time, however, it felt like this might be another day when the “curse” of Nakamura strikes again.
Nakamura felt he was affected by the fact it was the first game of the event, commenting in his recap: “Because it’s the first round, I really wanted to try and steer the game toward something that I felt was a lot calmer. In retrospect, this was a mistake. I should have tried to keep the game as sharp as possible.”
I should have tried to keep the game as sharp as possible.
—Hikaru Nakamura
Instead Nakamura stumbled into a difficult endgame where, as in the Praggnanandhaa game, it was an advancing h-pawn that was a thorn in his side.
The game outcome wasn’t inevitable, however, as Caruana also erred just as the finish line was approaching, which was why he described his emotions afterward as, “Mostly tired, a little embarrassed as well, but happy, overall!” 80…Kc7! would likely have saved the day for Nakamura, but instead he made what he called the “terrible, terrible mistake” of 80…Ke7?. As soon as 81.Kc6! appeared on the board, he realized what he’d done, but it was too late.
Hikaru seems to realize he missed a huge chance to play 80…Kc7! instead of 80…Ke7? #FIDECandidates pic.twitter.com/gGkSItOBiM
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 29, 2026
Caruana had seen the saving move but reflected, “I didn’t really have time to sweat it—he played it immediately!”
That epic clash is our Game of the Day, which GM Dejan Bojkov has analyzed below.
Nakamura gets Black in a second game in a row, this time against Esipenko, while Sindarov will be the only winning player to get White again in round two, when he faces Bluebaum.
FIDE Candidates Round 2 Pairings
FIDE Women’s Candidates: Fighting Draws
On the surface, round one of the FIDE Women’s Candidates looked quiet, but the four draws were anything but.
Women’s Candidates Round 1 Results
There was one very clear winning chance in the women’s event, and it came for 2019 Women’s Candidates winner Goryachkina. If she’d played 24.Rxe5! she would have won on the spot against her countrywoman Lagno.
The next clearest chance, at least on the board, was for top seed Zhu, whose 15.f4!! was a brilliant piece sacrifice, with the point that if the bishop is captured, the g4-bishop gets trapped.
That actually happened in the game, but Zhu missed the right moment to capture, and Tan even came close to taking over before the game ended in a draw.
A curious difference with the Women’s Candidates is that there’s a 30-second increment before move 40, so that time trouble should be much less severe, but in fact it was Vaishali who got into the most trouble of anyone all day. In a very difficult position against Assaubayeva, she got down to eight seconds before playing the important move 28.Nc4!.
Assaubayeva, whose hopes were linked more to her opponent’s clock than the “very hard to evaluate position,” took that as a signal to steer a fascinating game toward a draw.
The remaining draw never really caught fire, but Anna Muzychuk, a late replacement for GM Koneru Humpy, was content after being surprised by Divya’s 12.Bh3!? in a Scotch. “I’m satisfied with the result because I didn’t have chances for more and it could be worse!” reasoned Muzychuk.
That left all eight players on half a point in the Women’s Candidates as they go into round two that includes the all-Indian Divya vs. Vaishali clash.
FIDE Women’s Candidates: Round 2 Pairings
Who will strike first in the tournament?
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.
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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