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 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.

Timeline

January 2026 FIDE Rankings ^[1]

Rank	Prev	Player	Rating	Change
1	1	Magnus Carlsen	2849	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	Wei Yi	2754	0
10	10	Gukesh Dommaraju	2754	0

January

• 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]

Events

Major tournaments

Tournament	City	System	Dates	Players (2700+)	Winner	Runner-up	Third
Tata Steel Masters	Wijk aan Zee	Round robin	16 Jan – 1 Feb	14 (11)
Prague Masters	Prague	Round robin	24 Feb – 6 Mar	10
Candidates Tournament	Paphos	Double round robin	28 Mar – 16 Apr	8
GCT Romania	Bucharest	Round robin	12 – 24 May	10
Norway Chess	Stavanger	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	29 Jul – 28 Aug	10
GCT Finals		Single elimination		4
Chess Olympiad	Samarkand	Swiss	15 – 28 Sep	Teams
Total Chess World Championship Pioneer	TBD	Multi-stage	3 – 15 Oct	24

Opens

Tournament	City	TAR	Dates	Players	Winner	Runner-up	Third
Saint Louis Masters	St. Louis		24 Feb – 2 Mar
Aeroflot Open	Moscow		27 Feb – 6 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		21 – 29 Apr

Rapid & Blitz events

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
Chess.com Global Championship	Online	Double elimination	23 – 26 Apr	16
GCT Poland	Warsaw	Round robin [a]	3 – 10 May	10
GCT Croatia	Zagreb	Round robin [a]	29 Jun – 6 Jul	10
Esports World Cup	Riyadh	Multi-stage	6 Jul – 23 Aug	16
GCT St. Louis	St. Louis	Round robin [a]	29 Jul – 28 Aug	10
World Rapid Championship	TBD	Swiss	December	TBD
World Blitz Championship		Multi-stage		TBD

Women's events

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
Candidates Tournament	Paphos	Double round robin	28 Mar – 16 Apr	8
Norway Chess	Stavanger	Double round robin	25 May – 5 Jun	6
World Rapid Championship	TBD	Swiss	December	TBD
World Blitz Championship		Multi-stage

National events

Tournament	City	System	Dates	Players	Winner	Runner-up	Third
Armenian Championship	Yerevan	Round robin	13 – 22 Jan	10
Israeli Championship	Akko	Swiss	19 – 27 Jan	95
Azerbaijani Championship	Baku	Single elimination	7 – 22 Feb	26
Romanian Championship	Timișoara	Swiss	13 – 22 Feb	TBD
American Cup	St. Louis	Double elimination	15 – 23 Mar	8
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

Notes

1. The rapid portion of the tournament is a single round robin, while the blitz portion is a double round robin.

References

1. "January 2026 rating list published". FIDE. 1 January 2026. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
2. "Xu Xiangyu dominates 53rd Rilton Cup". ChessBase. 6 January 2026. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
3. "FIDE sued by five federations". ChessBase. 6 January 2026. Retrieved 9 January 2026.
4. "The first official FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship to be hosted in Weissenhaus". www.fide.com. Retrieved 2026-01-08.