FIDE Candidates 2026 Guide: Dates, players, venue, format, tiebreak rules, prize money, live streaming details

The FIDE Candidates 2026 kicks off from Sunday, March 29 onwards, marking the start of one of the most crucial events on chess calendar. Eight elite players in the open section and a same number of top stars in the women's section will compete against each other over the course of a few weeks to determine the challenger for the world titles.

India's D Gukesh is the current world champion in the open section while Ju Wenjun of China is the women's world title holder. Both of them will be keenly following the Candidates to find out who will challenge them later this year for their championships.

With the first round of the Candidates coming ahead, take a look at all the important details for the tournament here.

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FIDE Candidates 2026 Dates

The opening ceremony for the event took place on March 28. The first round will take place on March 29. A total of 14 rounds will take place till April 15 with a rest day scheduled after every few rounds. Rest days are on April 2, 6, 10 and 13.

Tiebreakers, if needed, will be held on April 16 which is also the day the tournament ends.

FIDE Candidates 2026 Venue

Cap St Georges Hotel & Resort in Pegeia, near Paphos, in Cyprus is hosting the event. Coming into the tournament, there were concerns over player safety due to the war in West Asia with Indian Grandmaster Koneru Humpy also withdrawing from the event. However, FIDE has decided to go ahead as planned.

FIDE Candidates 2026 Time

Action begins everyday, except rest days, at 3:30 PM local time which will be 7:00 PM Indian Standard Time.

FIDE Candidates 2026 Players

Open: Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, R Praggnanandhaa, Wei Yi, Javokhir Sindarov, Matthias Bluebaum, Andrey Esipenko

Women: Zhu Jiner, Tan Zhongyi, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Anna Muzychuk, Divya Deshmukh, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Kateryna Lagno, Bibisara Assaubayeva.

FIDE Candidates 2026 Format

The Candidates will be played in double round robin format where every player will play the other seven contenders twice, one time with black and white each. Every win is worth one point and a draw means sharing of half points each. A loss will give no points. The winner will be the one with most points after 14 rounds.

For open section, the time control is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with a 30-second increment per move starting from move 41. For women's 90 minutes will be there for first 40 moves with 30 more for the rest of the match.

FIDE Candidates 2026 Tiebreaker Rules

If two or more players are tied for the first place after 14 rounds, tiebreaks will take place to determine the winner. Rapid time control will be used with the exact time format to be decided by the number of people tied in the first place.

FIDE Candidates 2026 Prize Money

The open section has a minimum prize fund of €700,000 (Rs 7.6 crore) while the Women's Candidates offers €300,000 (Rs 3.27 crore). The winner will get €70,000 (Rs 76 lakh). The players who are tied for the first place will get the same amount with the results of tiebreaks not hurting their financial rewards. Moreover, each player will get €5000 (Rs. 5.4 lakh) for every half point scored.

FIDE Candidates 2026 Live Streaming

The Candidates 2026 will be streamed live on FIDE YouTube channel. You can follow the live coverage of the event with us at Firstpost.