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 three
- Hikaru Nakamura has a major edge over Anish Giri in games across all formats, while most of their classical games ended drawn.
- There is no record of Wei Yi ever obtaining a win over Fabiano Caruana. Furthermore, Caruana won three of the five games they played against each other. The US star won their last two confrontations, both at the 2025 Norway Chess event.
- Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu has a slight edge over Javokhir Sindarov both in classical games and in their overall record.
- Matthias Bluebaum and Andrey Esipenko only played two classical games. Bluebaum beat Esipenko with black at the 2016 Aeroflot Open.
Hikaru Nakamura v. Anish Giri
Classical chess confrontations
Fabiano Caruana v. Wei Yi
Classical chess confrontations
Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu v. Javokhir Sindarov
Classical chess confrontations
Matthias Bluebaum v. Andrey Esipenko
Classical chess confrontations
Women's - Round three
- Kateryna Lagno has a major edge over Tan Zhongyi in their contests across all formats. They have each won 4 games in their classical confrontations, though. Notably, Tan beat Lagno in their 2023 Candidates match - which was decided in tiebreaks.
- Vaishali Rameshbabu and Anna Muzychuk played 9 classical games, with Vaishali winning the one encounter that ended decisively - which was played at the 2024 Women's Candidates in Toronto.
- Divya Deshmukh has never defeated Aleksandra Goryachkina as per the Mega Database records. Moreover, Goryachkina won all six games in which she had white against Deshmukh, including their two classical games with that colour combination.
- Zhu Jiner and Bibisara Assaubayeva only played three classical games so far. In the only decisive classical encounter, Zhu won with black at the 2018 World Junior Championship.
Tan Zhongyi v. Kateryna Lagno
Classical chess confrontations
Vaishali Rameshbabu v. Anna Muzychuk
Classical chess confrontations
Aleksandra Goryachkina v. Divya Deshmukh
Classical chess confrontations
Zhu Jiner v. Bibisara Assaubayeva
Classical chess confrontations
EXPAND YOUR CHESS HORIZONS
Data, plans, practice – the new Opening Report In ChessBase there are always attempts to show the typical plans of an opening variation. In the age of engines, chess is much more concrete than previously thought. But amateurs in particular love openings with clear plans, see the London System. In ChessBase ’26, three functions deal with the display of plans. The new opening report examines which piece moves or pawn advances are significant for each important variation. In the reference search you can now see on the board where the pieces usually go. If you start the new Monte Carlo analysis, the board also shows the most common figure paths.
