International Chess Federation (FIDE
)
reported
that the men's and women's candidates tournaments will be held from March 28 to April 16, 2026 at the Cap resort
St
Georges
Hotel
&Resort
in Cyprus. The prize fund for the competition will be at least a million dollars. There has never been anything like this in the chess history of Cyprus.
- Cyprus has hosted the FIDE Women's Grand Prix twice, and now it's time for the most prestigious tournament in the chess calendar - the Candidates Tournament. I would like to thank our long-time partners, Freedom
Holding
and the Sheinberg family, who joined forces to support this event. We are very grateful to them for their constant support,” said FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich.
Eight chess players and chess players will take part in the two-round tournaments. The games will be played with a time control of two hours for the first 40 moves + half an hour until the end of the game with an addition of 30 seconds for each move, starting from the 41st. Players will not be allowed to settle for a draw until the 41st move.
Four of the eight participants in the Candidates Tournament are known: Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura (both USA), Anish Giri (Netherlands) and Matthias Bluebaum (Germany). They will be joined by chess players who will take the first three places at the World Cup in Goa and the best player according to the FIDE Circuit system.
The candidates' tournament will feature Zhu Jin'er and Tan Zhongyi (China), Divya Deshmukh, Koneru Hampi and Vaishali Rameshbabu (India), Alexandra Goryachkina and Katerina Lagno (Russians playing under the FIDE flag) + the best chess player based on the results of the 2024-2025 tournament series.
If, based on the results of 14 rounds, no chess players are identified who took clear first place, then the winners will be determined in the playoffs (rapid + blitz). They will get the right to play matches with the champion (Indian Gukesh Dommaraju) and the champion (Chinese Ju Wenjun) of the world.
— Visiting Cap
St
Georges
, I felt that this was the ideal place to host such an important event. The world is waiting for a chess festival. “It’s not just about the record prize fund, but also about how this event will be presented to the chess community and the general public,” stated the FIDE CEO
Emil Sutovsky.
Photo:
FIDE press service
!!!
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