R Praggnanandhaa began his 2026 FIDE Candidates tournament with a superb win with the white pieces against Anish Giri, to lay down a marker early on in the tournament, and allay fears of his form and mental state coming into the tournament.
Right from the beginning of the game, Praggnanandhaa showed real preparation in the opening and showed complete control of the game and the clock as well. The engine just favoured him throughout the opening and much of the middle-game.
The real turning point of the game, though, came on move 30 — a bishop move to e1 which Viswanathan Anand, on chess.com’s live stream, called a stroke of genius. That was the beginning of the end for Giri, and he hastened the end six moves later, with a blunder with his bishop.
From then on, Praggnanandhaa went about dismantling Giri’s position methodically, and evaded every single banana peel in the position that may have tripped him up.
Eventually, Giri resigned on move 51, as Praggnanandhaa laid down an early marker by beating a player renowned for his defensive capability and how hard he can be to beat.
In Round 2 tomorrow, Praggnanandhaa will face China’s Wei Yi, with the Indian having the black pieces.
FIDE Candidates 2026 Open Results: Round 1
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R Praggnanandhaa 1-0 Anish Giri
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Matthias Bluebaum 0-5-0.5 Wei Yi
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Javokhir Sindarov 1-0 Andrey Esipenko
Divya, Vaishali start with draws
Divya Deshmukh and R Vaishali began their 2026 FIDE Candidates tournament with contrasting draws with white pieces on the opening day against Anna Muzychuk and Bibisara Assaubayeva respectively.
Divya started well with the white pieces against Muzychuk, the eleventh-hour replacement for Koneru Humpy, who withdrew from the tournament. Divya’s preparation in the opening showed as she gained a massive advantage on the clock by blitzing out her moves throughout the opening.
After the first 19 moves of the game, the engines gave Divya a slight edge, and in a situation where her opponent was under time pressure, it might have been a position in which Divya could’ve pushed to begin her Candidates journey with a win. However, instead of trading knights on move 20, Divya chose to capture a pawn with her bishop, which brought the position to equality. The players played 12 moves after that, before a three-fold repetition ensured a draw.
Vaishali, meanwhile, escaped with half a point from her opening game of the tournament against Bibisara Assaubayeva. After a Sicilian Opening which both players fought through without too many dramas, Vaishali gave Assaubayeva an opening with an erroneous advancement of her rook on move 25. However, Assaubayeva threw the advantage away just four moves later, and then the two players agreed a draw on move 40.
All four games in the women’s section ended in draws, with Kateryna Lagno and Tan Zhongyi, both with black pieces, holding Alexandra Goryachkina and Zhu Jiner respectively.
FIDE Candidates 2026 Women Results: Round 1
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R Vaishali 0.5-0.5 Bibisara Assaubayeva
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Divya Deshmukh 0.5-0.5 Anna Muzychuk
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Alexandra Goryachkina 0.5-0.5 Kateryna Lagno
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Zhu Jiner 0.5-0.5 Tan Zhongyi
