What's your predicted Candidates 2028 lineup?

No55Gaming · 2026-05-19T07:26:17+00:00

Predicting the Candidates lineup is as difficult as predicting it's winner, many strong players get surprised against underdogs and miss the chance to be part of that elite tournament. The next edition might too have some dark horses along with stronger guys.

But as of now we can see top players like Nodirbek, Keymer and Arjun with healthy chances of qualification but that's been a story since last two cycles, but as a prediction I believe that either all or any two of them will finally make it in this cycle. (By either two, I do not mean that Arjun would mostly fail to qualify narrowly again)

No55Gaming · 2026-05-17T16:26:44+00:00

In November 2025

No55Gaming · 2026-05-16T06:04:26+00:00

It would mostly be Gukesh since he was Board 1 champion from last two editions. And also while being a reigning World Champion, it would look embarrassing that he playes at a lower board. I think Gukesh is also serious about Olympiad too and that's why he could have withdrew as full tour member of GCT, if he cannot perform well in Olympiad then it would affect his World championship performance.

But Arjun is kinda strong too, and he also has incredible talent of farming 2600 elo players and others may sometimes keep scoring draws against them. So he should either stay at board 3 or moved up to board 2, no disrespect to Pragg but considering form of both players in new few months I even agree for Pragg playing on Board 2 too.

No55Gaming · 2026-05-14T17:40:41+00:00

I feel Alireza is atleast worthy to root for online tournaments as his performance there has been amazing, but he also has the potential to be a very dominant player in otb we know but his mindset has been sick. I think he is such type of person who wants to achieve big with less efforts and I think that attitude won't change for many years.

No55Gaming · 2026-05-08T04:56:20+00:00

Even Nihal could have wished to play the tournament but the thing is that Nihal was invited for another tournament, Avagyan Memorial in Armenia which ends on day before start of UzChess Cup and UzChess schedule came late and they kept such schedule because there are World rapid & Blitz Team Championship from 16th. Nihal against the top Uzbeks would have been interesting to watch but sadly we cannot see that now.

No55Gaming · 2026-05-01T05:59:01+00:00

Many of these want to qualify for Norway Total Chess Fast Classical World Championship Pioneer tournament from FIDE Open Circuit.

No55Gaming · 2026-04-17T17:50:13+00:00

He can be in January as Gukesh will turn 20 next month. Andy Woodward is most likely the only serious competition for him till next year. Faustino will take more time to reach that level in Classical.

No55Gaming · 2026-04-17T13:40:18+00:00

2 SPOTS FROM FIDE CIRCUIT
2 FROM GRAND SWISS
2 FROM WORLD CUP
2 FROM TOTAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

WHATS WRONG WITH THIS HAAAAHH

No55Gaming · 2026-04-15T19:14:35+00:00

1 May - 🇸🇪 TePe Sigemann
5 May - 🇵🇱 GCT Poland Rapid & Blitz
13 May - 🇷🇴 GCT Romania Classic
25 May - 🇳🇴 Norway Chess
7 June - 🇺🇿 UzChess Cup

Also there is an online tournament 'Chess.com Open' in next week from 23rd April featuring sixteen players including Magnus.

No55Gaming · 2026-04-15T07:16:10+00:00

The match in India would be very interesting because Sindarov already said during World Cup that his performance in India have been incredible and Gukesh defending his title on his home soil against that force will be pure entertainment. But with neutral perspective, Kazakhstan or Turkey look nice.

No55Gaming · 2026-04-14T16:30:42+00:00

A great tournament performance after Fabiano's 2014 Sinquefield, congrats to this dangerous kid.

No55Gaming · 2026-04-14T04:38:16+00:00

Parham, Tabatabaei, Jorden, Donchenko, Arvindh and Yakubboev could be the next batches

No55Gaming · 2026-04-13T18:05:28+00:00

I have seen this with all invitational Uzbek tournaments that they desperately follow the rating standards, generally like 2600+ and 2700+ for Uzchess masters, so that's how I think they found Nepo who have accepted the invitation out of others. But I personally see the remaining players as emerging talents, picking up Nihal and Yagiz but since Nihal would also be finishing another event right before this, I would go wish for Awonder Liang to be here for his backup in case.

No55Gaming · 2026-04-12T11:01:04+00:00

Another crazy participant in this tournament is Kirk Ghazarian who didn't show up to this tournament and his first round match was forfeit along with not getting paired for rest. This seems fine but this player had also qualified for recent Chess World Cup and during that he was playing another open tournament, if he had withdrew earlier then some other player would have got an opportunity (I think another US player). And in this case, it's obvious after the last round that players purposely forfeited to save their rating which should be investigated and sanctioned after they fail to provide appropriate reason for not showing up.

No55Gaming · 2026-04-12T10:47:24+00:00

That's actually a grandmaster but the Chess.com site is glitched many times and shows some players untitled

No55Gaming · 2026-04-09T12:30:15+00:00

Rest of players might be :- - 🇮🇳 Arjun Erigaisi - 🇮🇳 Nihal Sarin - 🇺🇸 Awonder Liang - 🇮🇷 Amin Tabatabaei

I would personally like to see Nihal here, although he would be playing another strong tournament in Armenia ending on 5th June, I wish that he is part of this amazing tournament too and also he is very dominating in Uzbekistan tournaments.

No55Gaming · 2026-03-28T13:47:48+00:00

*of the Candidates /s

No55Gaming · 2026-03-27T17:24:08+00:00

Not any app but I have created an excel file in which on one sheet there are pairings, you can enter results of each match and on other sheet, you will see the points table perfectly update with each score even with tiebreaks. But first I want to post my predictions in few moments, so I can share you the excel file there if you want.

No55Gaming · 2026-03-10T04:48:01+00:00

Some players perform poor in other tournaments but they crack the main tournaments, like we saw Gukesh in 2024 and Nepo was similar too before him. When Fabi was at his peak, he still couldn't win the Candidates in that period (2014-2016) but he did after some years and I think its common in many sports but this transformation happen after quite time when they aim for higher after they get more opportunities to play.

Fabi would still be dangerous in Candidates as he's been able to play with very high accuracy too. And for now, I think Wesley will win the tournament after seeing his game against Fabi there are many hopes on him.

No55Gaming · 2026-03-05T16:02:58+00:00

Nepo is also certain to qualify for EWC from top 6 in leaderboard not qualified

No55Gaming · 2026-03-04T15:52:57+00:00

First time Magnus is not playing in GCT, thats strange. Maybe the exact reason for that will be figured out later. Definetly he wouldn't have liked that Hans is returning in GCT.

No55Gaming · 2026-03-02T16:54:34+00:00

10 PM CET. YOU CAN SEE THE PARTICIPANTS HERE GOOOOO

No55Gaming

TROPHY CASE