2026 in chess

Major chess events in 2026 include the annual Tata Steel Chess Tournament, Prague Chess Festival, Norway Chess and Grand Chess Tour. The Candidates Tournament and the Women's Candidates Tournament at Paphos, Cyprus in March will determine the challengers for the World Chess Championship 2026 and the Women's World Chess Championship 2026 respectively. The pilot version of Total Chess World Championship Tour will kick off in October.

January 2026 FIDE Rankings^[1]

Rank	Prev	Player	Rating	Change
1	1	Magnus Carlsen	2840	0
2	2	Hikaru Nakamura	2810	0
3	3	Fabiano Caruana	2795	0
4	4	Vincent Keymer	2776	0
5	5	Arjun Erigaisi	2775	0
6	7	Anish Giri	2760	9
7	6	Alireza Firouzja	2759	-1
8	6	R Praggnanandhaa	2758	-3
9	9	Gukesh Dommaraju	2754	0
10	10	Wei Yi	2754	0

• Jan 5 – Xu Xiangyu won the 53rd Rilton Cup with 8/9.^[2]
• Jan 5 – National Chess Federations of Ukraine, England, Norway, Estonia and Germany filed an appeal to (CAS), challenging the resolutions adopted by the FIDE General Assembly concerning the participation Russian and Belarusian national teams in international chess competitions.^[3]
• Jan 7 – FIDE made a cooperation agreement with Freestyle Chess and announced the first official Freestyle Chess World Championship which will be held at Weissenhaus in Germany from 13 to 15 February alongside a Women's exhibition match.^[4]
• Jan 9 – Nihal Sarin won the Tata Steel India Rapid tournament with 6½/9. Kateryna Lagno won the women's section with one round to spare.^[5][6]
• Jan 11 – Wesley So won the Tata Steel India Blitz tournament with 12/18. Carissa Yip won the women's section after defeating Vantika Agrawal in a tiebreak match.^[7][8]
• Jan 15 – Nodirbek Abdusattorov won the online Freestyle chess play-in event to qualify for the Freestyle Chess World Championship 2026.^[9]

February 2026 FIDE Rankings^[10]

Rank	Prev	Player	Rating	Change
1	1	Magnus Carlsen	2840	0
2	2	Hikaru Nakamura	2810	0
3	3	Fabiano Caruana	2795	0
4	4	Vincent Keymer	2776	0
5	5	Arjun Erigaisi	2775	0
6	6	Anish Giri	2760	0
7	7	Alireza Firouzja	2759	0
8	8	R Praggnanandhaa	2758	0
9	9	Gukesh Dommaraju	2754	0
10	10	Wei Yi	2754	0

• Feb 1 – Nodirbek Abdusattorov won the Tata Steel Masters with 9/13. The Challengers section was won by American grandmaster Andy Woodward with 10/13 who qualified for Masters section in 2027.^[11]
• Feb 8 – Magnus Carlsen won the 2025 Speed Chess Championship^[a] with 15-12 against Alireza Firouzja. Denis Lazavik finished third after defeating Hikaru Nakamura with 13½-12½ in the consolation match and qualified for Esports World Cup.^[12][13]
• Feb 15 – Magnus Carlsen won the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship after defeating Fabiano Caruana in the final, securing his maiden Chess960 title and twenty-first world title of his career.^[14][15][16]

Tournament	City	System	Dates	Players (2700+)	Winner	Runner-up	Third
Tata Steel Masters	Wijk aan Zee	Round robin	16 Jan – 1 Feb	14 (11)	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	Javokhir Sindarov	Jorden van Foreest
Prague Masters	Prague	Round robin	24 Feb – 6 Mar	10 (7)
Candidates Tournament	Paphos	Double round robin	28 Mar – 16 Apr	8
TePe Sigeman & Co tournament	Malmö	Round robin	1 – 7 May	8
GCT Romania	Bucharest	Round robin	12 – 24 May	10
Norway Chess	Oslo	Double round robin	25 May – 5 Jun	6
Stepan Avagyan Memorial	Jermuk	Round robin	28 May – 6 Jun	10
Biel Masters	Biel/Bienne	Multi-stage	11 – 24 Jul	6
Sinquefield Cup	St. Louis	Round robin	8 – 21 Aug	10
GCT Finals		Single elimination	21 – 28 Aug	4
Chess Olympiad	Samarkand	Swiss	15 – 28 Sep	Teams
Total Chess World Championship Pioneer	TBD	Multi-stage	3 – 15 Oct	24

Tournament	City	TAR	Dates	Players	Winner	Runner-up	Third
Saint Louis Masters	St. Louis		24 Feb – 2 Mar
Aeroflot Open	Moscow	2641	27 Feb – 6 Mar	180
Tashkent Open - Agzamov Memorial	Tashkent		17 – 26 Mar
Reykjavik Open	Reykjavík		25 – 31 Mar
Open Internacional Alicante	Alicante		1 – 6 Apr
Menorca Open	Menorca		7 – 12 Apr
European Individual Championship	Katowice		7 – 19 Apr
Sharjah Masters	Sharjah		1 – 9 May
Dubai Open	Dubai		7 – 17 Jun

Tournament	City	System	Dates	Players	Winner	Runner-up	Third
Tata Steel India Rapid	Kolkata	Round robin	7 – 9 Jan	10	Nihal Sarin	Viswanathan Anand	Arjun Erigaisi
Tata Steel India Blitz		Double round robin	10 – 11 Jan	10	Wesley So	Nihal Sarin	Arjun Erigaisi
Speed Chess Championship 2025 finals	London	Single elimination	7 – 8 Feb	4	Magnus Carlsen	Alireza Firouzja	Denis Lazavik
Menorca Master Tournament	Menorca	Double round robin	7 – 12 Apr	6
Chess.com Global Championship	TBD	Double elimination	23 – 26 Apr	16
GCT Poland	Warsaw	Round robin[b]	3 – 10 May	10
GCT Croatia	Zagreb	Round robin[b]	29 Jun – 6 Jul	10
GCT St. Louis	St. Louis	Round robin[b]	31 Jul – 7 Aug	10
Esports World Cup	Riyadh	Multi-stage	11 – 15 Aug	16
Esports Nations Cup		Multi-stage	2 – 8 Nov	128
World Rapid Championship	TBD	Swiss	December	TBD
World Blitz Championship		Multi-stage		TBD

Tournament	City	System	Dates	Players (2500+)	Winner	Runner-up	Third
Tata Steel India Rapid	Kolkata	Round robin	7 – 9 Jan	10 (2)	Kateryna Lagno	Aleksandra Goryachkina	Divya Deshmukh
Tata Steel India Blitz		Double round robin	10 – 11 Jan	10 (2)	Carissa Yip	Vantika Agrawal	Stavroula Tsolakidou
International Tournament - Women's Chess Championship	Bukhara	Round robin	9 – 15 Mar	10
Candidates Tournament	Paphos	Double round robin	28 Mar – 16 Apr	8
Norway Chess	Oslo	Double round robin	25 May – 5 Jun	6
Cairns Cup	St. Louis	Round robin	7 – 20 Jun	10
World Rapid Championship	TBD	Swiss	December	TBD
World Blitz Championship		Multi-stage

Tournament	City	System	Dates	Players	Winner	Runner-up	Third
Armenian Championship	Yerevan	Round robin	13 – 22 Jan	10	Manuel Petrosyan	Artur Davtyan	Zaven Andriasian
Israeli Championship	Akko	Swiss	19 – 27 Jan	109	Yahli Sokolovsky	Yeshaayahu Tzidkiya	Evgeny Alekseev
Georgian Championship	Tbilisi	Round robin	27 Jan – 5 Feb	10	Baadur Jobava	Tornike Sanikidze	Luka Kiladze
Singaporean Championship	Singapore	Swiss	2 – 15 Feb	31	Tin Jingyao	Liu Xiangyi	Sreekarthika Velmurugan
Azerbaijani Championship	Baku	Single elimination	7 – 22 Feb	26
Montenegrin Championship	Podgorica	Swiss	10 – 20 Feb	62	Denis Kadrić	Nikola Djukić	Jovan Milović
Romanian Championship	Timișoara	Swiss	13 – 22 Feb	73
American Cup	St. Louis	Double elimination	2 – 13 Mar	8
Polish Championship	Warsaw	Round robin	22 – 30 Mar	10
Norwegian Championship	Kristiansund	Swiss	3 – 11 Jul	TBD
German Championship	Dresden	Round robin	17 – 25 Jul	10
British Championship	Coventry	Swiss	1 – 9 Aug	TBD
French Championship	Vichy	Single elimination	7 – 16 Aug	16
U.S. Championship	St. Louis	Round robin	10 – 24 Oct	12

• 18 February — Jan Timman, Dutch grandmaster and author.^[17][18]