This… is Today in Chess.

Your brief roundup of the biggest results, key games, and defining moments from the world’s top chess competitions.

Today, the 14th April 2026 was the penultimate round - 13 of 14 of the 2026 Candidates tournament to choose the next contender to face Gukesh to battle it out to be the next world champion.

The pairings were:

Wei Yi v Esipenko WIN FOR WEI YI

Giri v Sindarov DRAW

Nakamura v Bluebaum DRAW

Caruana v Pragg DRAW

The standings now, after 13 rounds are:

Sindarov 9.5

Giri 7.5

Caruana, Wei Yi 6.5

Bluebaum, Nakamura 6

Pragg 5.5

Esipenko 4.5

And this is it – with one round to go, Sindarov has sealed the win. The 20 year old Uzbek wunderkind has won the tournament and earned the right to face off against Gukesh for the world championship later this year.

What a tournament he has played, he grabbed it by the proverbials early on and never let go, never looked in doubt, continued to ease away.

And frankly, with Gukesh's performance being pretty poor since he won the world title, dropping down to an Elo of 2732 in the live ratings at number 16 in the world, and Sindarov having rising to number 5 in the world with an Elo of 2775, I think we are looking at the strong favourite for the world championship.

In the Women's Candidates we have a lot of excitement leading into the final round. The standings are: Bibisara Assaubayeva and Vaishali Rameshbabu on 7.5 of 13, and Zhu Jiner on 7. Any one of those three could win it. Tomorrow Assaubayeva plays black against Deshmukh who is currently in last place. Vaishali has the white pieces against Kataryna Lagno and Zhu Jiner has black against Ana Muzychuk. Slightadvantage to Assaubayeva!

Thanks for following me through these tournaments, any feedback hit me up at [email protected]

Until the next day in chess – be lucky, and may all your gambits be accepted and give you a winning position!