Carlsen doubted him, Anand backed him: Sindarov leads Fide Candidates 2026 as prediction goes viral

Five-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand is apparently better than Magnus Carlsen when it comes to picking winners for a tournament. Five-time world champion Carlsen had pegged current Fide Candidates 2026 leader Javokhir Sindarov in the bottom "Unlikely to win" category in his Tier list for the tournament, but Indian chess great Viswanathan Anand had an opposite take, picking Sindarov as one of the possible winners.

The predictions were made before the Fide Candidates 2026 got underway on 29 March in Cyprus. And while Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura were among the favourites for almost all the experts, Viswanathan Anand, making a left-field choice and also picking Sindarov as a possible winner, is now going viral.

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When Anand backed Sindarov but Carlsen didn't

The video of Anand making a case for Sindarov while speaking to Fide has been shared by Chess.com's social media handle. Carlsen, Nakamura and Caruana can be seen downplaying Fide World Cup winner Sindarov's chances in the video, but Anand argued that the Uzbekistan Grandmaster had a great chance of pulling off a surprise.

“At the other end of spectrum (from Caruana, the second oldest after Nakamura), who stood out for me was Sindarov. He is extremely aggressive and extremely resourceful,” Anand had told Fide.

“At the same time, I don’t see the usual defects – (where), if someone is aggressive, he’ll be weak in positional play. He plays some endgames nicely. He gets into good positional play. Even then, he gets into chaos. But he gets out of it. I like his resourcefulness. I think we can put him as winner as well."

“He has the ability to score when he’s down. He doesn’t get too hammered by defeats,” Anand added.

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And that's exactly how it has turned out to be. Sindarov is ruling the Fide Candidates 2026, leading with an incredible score of 6/7. He has won five matches and drawn two so far.

Meanwhile, India's R Praggnanandhaa is currently joint third in the standings with 3.5 points.

Sindarov faces Russia's Andrey Esipenko in Round 8 on Tuesday, while Praggnanandhaa will be up against Anish Giri. The leader after 14 rounds will be declared the challenger for the Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh's world title.