The Candidates Tournaments occupy a central place in the chess calendar, as it determines the challengers for the next World Chess Championships - in the open and women's circuits.
With only a small, elite field competing over a demanding round-robin format, every encounter carries considerable weight, and familiarity between players often plays a role. Examining head-to-head records offers a useful way to contextualise these rivalries ahead of such a decisive event.
The focus here is placed on the direct records between participants, highlighting how individual matchups have developed over time. These statistics can reveal patterns that are not immediately apparent from ratings or recent form alone.
To compile these figures efficiently, the data has been sourced using Mega Database 2026, the leading reference tool for players of all levels. With over 11.7 million games spanning from 1475 to 2026 and more than 114,000 annotated encounters, it offers a comprehensive and reliable foundation for statistical work of this kind.
In each pairing, stats have been separated in 1) classical encounters and 2) all encounters, which include rapid, blitz and chess960 games, played over the board or online.
The premiere chess database with over 11.7 million games
The ChessBase Mega Database 2026 is the premiere chess database with over 11.7 million games from 1475 to 2025 in high quality.
Open - Round one
- Notably, Matthias Bluebaum and Wei Yi have no records of having faced each other, not even in blitz or rapid.
- By far, the contenders who have played each other the most are Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. In classical games, Nakamura has a 12-8 advantage in decisive games, while he has a much bigger advantage if we consider all games (including, of course, his speciality: online blitz), with a 112-63 score in his favour in decisive games.
- Anish Giri has a small edge over Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu both in classical chess and in general.
- Javokhir Sindarov and Andrey Esipenko have no record of having played a classical game before their round-one encounter in Cyprus.
Fabiano Caruana v. Hikaru Nakamura
Classical chess confrontations
Praggnanandhaa v. Anish Giri
Classical chess confrontations
Javokhir Sindarov v. Andrey Esipenko
All confrontations
Women's - Round one
- Vaishali Rameshbabu and Bibisara Assaubayeva have played each other much more often online, with the Kazakh representative having a small edge both in classical chess and in their confrontations overall.
- On the contrary, compatriots Zhu Jiner and Tan Zhongyi have mostly played classical chess and mostly in China. Tan has a major edge over her younger compatriot.
- Aleksandra Goryachkina and Kateryna Lagno have quite an even record.
- Anna Muzychuk has defeated Divya Deshmukh in their only classical encounter. They drew three times in other formats.
Vaishali Rameshbabu v. Bibisara Assaubayeva
Classical chess confrontations
Zhu Jiner v. Tan Zhongyi
Classical chess confrontations
Aleksandra Goryachkina v. Kateryna Lagno
Classical chess confrontations
Divya Deshmukh v. Anna Muzychuk
All confrontations
EXPAND YOUR CHESS HORIZONS
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