The Candidates Tournaments serve as the crucial final qualifying stage for the FIDE World Championship cycle. Each tournament brings together eight of the world’s elite chess players, who vie for victory in a challenging double round-robin format spanning fourteen rounds of classical chess. The inaugural round is particularly exciting, highlighted by a high-stakes clash between top seeds in the open section: Fabiano Caruana, playing with the white pieces, faces off against Hikaru Nakamura.








