Here we go again! By the end of this year, eight players will have qualified for the 2026 Candidates’ Tournament, whose winner earns the right to challenge Gukesh Dommaraju for the World Championship title. One player, Fabiano Caruana, is qualified already, thanks to strong results in 2024. Fide, the international federation, also holds two major qualifying events: the Grand Swiss, currently underway in Samarkand, and the World Cup, to be held in Goa in November.
Altogether, seven out of eight qualifying spots are awarded based on tournament results. The final spot will be awarded to the highest-rated player who doesn’t otherwise qualify. In theory, that would be Magnus Carlsen, but the former world champion, who abdicated in 2022, has shown no interest in regaining the title.
Next in line is Hikaru Nakamura, whose renaissance in the last few years sees him occupy the no. 2 spot by a comfortable margin. The Candidates’ Tournament is a big draw, and Nakamura has narrowly missed out on becoming a world championship challenger in the past. There is one catch: eligibility for the rating spot depends on playing 40 internationally rated games in the year. Almost all professional players meet that threshold comfortably, but these days Nakamura’s primary focus is his lucrative streaming career, which means that his appetite for classical (slow) events is limited. In the last 12 months, Nakamura has played just two elite classical events, leaving him 22 games short of being eligible.
Rules are rules, but Fide never said anything about the calibre of opposition. Which is why Nakamura went to compete at the Louisiana State Championship last month, facing players about 800 points below him on the rating scale – a gap so wide that his statistical chance of winning each game was close to 100 per cent. He duly scored seven wins out of seven in New Orleans, winning $800. Absurd perhaps, but there was nothing underhand. Nakamura, who has been openly critical of Fide’s rules, posted on X about ‘LIVE streaming my Road to Candidates Mickey Mouse Tournament 1’. A few days later, he followed up with five consecutive wins at the Iowa Open Championship, so he will undoubtedly cross the 40-game threshold soon.
The title of Louisiana State Champion went to Nicholas Matta, the highest-placed local resident, who put up a good fight in the penultimate round.
Hikaru Nakamura-Nicholas Matta
Louisiana State Championship, August 2025
1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 cxd5 exd5 5 Bg5 c6 6 e3 Bd6 7 Bd3 O-O 8 Nf3 Re8 9 O-O Bg4 10 Qc2 h6 11 Bh4 Nbd7 12 Rae1 Nf8 13 Nd2 Bh5 14 f4 g5 Courageous and strong, as 15 fxg5 Ng4 hits the pawns on e3 and h2. 15 Bg3 Ng6 16 Bxg6 Bxg6 17 Qd1 Bd3 17…b5!? makes sense, preparing b5-b4 to sideline the Nc3. 18 Rf2 g4 The drawback of denying the knight access to e5 (via f3) is that the bishop can assumes a strong post on h4. 19 Bh4 h5 20 Qb3 Threatening both Qxb7 and Nxd5. Ba6 21 e4!
Be7 Black cannot avoid being overrun in the centre. 21…dxe4 22 Ncxe4! Be7 23 Nxf6+ Bxf6 24 Rxe8+ Qxe8 25 Bxf6 Qe1+ 26 Nf1! wins (and thus 22 Ncxe4!) 22 e5 Nd7 23 Bxe7 Qxe7 24 Nf1 Bxf1 24…f5!, blocking the f-pawn, might have resisted for longer. 25 Rfxf1 Nb6 26 Qc2 Qe6 27 f5 Qh6 28 f6 The central pawn wedge confers an overwhelming advantage. Nd7 29 h3 gxh3 30 Qf5 Nf8 31 Qxh3 Re6 32 Rf5 h4 33 Ne2 Ng6 34 Ref1 Qd2 35 Qg4 Kf8 36 Rg5 Qe3+ 37 Rf2 Qe4 38 Nf4 Black resigns
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