Sindarov Scores 6/7 at the 2026 Candidates Halfway Mark, Breaking Every Record in the Book

Javokhir Sindarov has done something no one has done before at the Candidates Tournament. After seven rounds in Paphos, Cyprus, the 20-year-old from Uzbekistan sits on 6/7, the highest halfway score in the history of the modern eight-player double round-robin format. He leads Fabiano Caruana by a full 1.5 points. The rest of the field is even further back. This is not a fluke. This is a demolition. ## The Numbers Five wins, two draws, zero losses. Sindarov beat Andrey Esipenko in Round 1, Praggnanandhaa in Round 3, Fabiano Caruana in Round 4, Hikaru Nakamura in Round 5, and Wei Yi in Round 6. His only draws came in Round 2 and Round 7 against Anish Giri, who built a fortress by sacrificing the exchange to deny Sindarov a sixth win. The previous best halfway score belonged to Ian Nepomniachtchi, who managed 5.5/7 at the 2022 Candidates in Madrid. Sindarov has beaten that by half a point. For context, no Candidates winner in the modern format has ever scored more than five wins across the full 14-round tournament. Sindarov already has five, and there are seven rounds left. ## How He Did It The Round 4 win over Caruana was the turning point. Both players entered that game as co-leaders on 2.5/3. Sindarov outprepared Caruana in the Queen's Gambit Accepted, a line where preparation depth matters enormously. Caruana, one of the most prepared players in history, found himself on the wrong side of the theory. After that loss, Sindarov had sole possession of first place and never looked back. Round 5 against Nakamura was equally clinical. Nakamura spent 67 minutes on his 13th move before playing h4, a decision Sindarov described bluntly: "He just thought one hour and played the wrong move, and after this I take this advantage and played very well." The time advantage proved decisive. In Round 6, Sindarov took down Wei Yi after the Chinese grandmaster surprised him with 5.a3. The game reached a complex position where Sindarov's time management proved critical. With Wei Yi down to 6 minutes against Sindarov's 51, the position turned. Sindarov called himself "a dynamic player" who thrives when both sides have chances in complicated positions. ## What Makes This Performance Remarkable The Candidates Tournament is not a Swiss open. It is a closed round-robin against seven of the strongest players on the planet. Every single opponent is a world-class grandmaster. Scoring 6/7 against this field is the chess equivalent of a tennis player winning the first two sets of every match at a Grand Slam. Sindarov is the youngest player in the field at 20 years old. He qualified by winning the 2025 FIDE World Cup in Goa, India, where he was also a relative unknown who tore through a knockout bracket of the world's best. That victory earned him his Candidates spot. Now he is making it look like he belongs at an entirely different level. Caruana himself acknowledged the situation after Round 7: "Some people have very minimal chances at this point. I'm the only one who's within 1.5 points." ## The Women's Candidates: Muzychuk Leads a Tight Race While Sindarov is running away with the Open section, the Women's Candidates tells a different story. Anna Muzychuk leads with 4/6 after Round 6, but five players sit just one point behind at 3/6. The race is wide open. Muzychuk's story is remarkable in its own right. She was a last-minute replacement for Koneru Humpy, who withdrew over safety concerns about the Cyprus venue. Muzychuk broke a personal 21-game winless streak at Candidates events in Round 4 and has since surged into the lead with consecutive decisive games. Divya Deshmukh picked up her first tournament win in Round 6 against Bibisara Assaubayeva, returning to 50%. Vaishali Rameshbabu also won in Round 6, moving within half a point of Muzychuk. The second half promises to be far more competitive than the Open section. ## What Happens Next The second half of the Candidates begins after the rest day. Sindarov will face the same seven opponents again, this time with reversed colors. History says a 1.5-point lead at the halfway mark is nearly insurmountable, but history also says nobody has ever scored 6/7 in the first half. Sindarov is writing his own record book. Caruana is the only realistic challenger. At 4.5/7, he needs to gain at least 1.5 points on Sindarov in the second half. That means winning games while hoping Sindarov drops points. It is a tall order against a player who has lost zero games and shown no signs of slowing down. If Sindarov holds his lead, he will face World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju for the title later this year. The chess world would get a World Championship match between two players aged 20 and 19. That has never happened before either. Sindarov's quote after his draw in Round 7, when Giri denied him a sixth win, captured the mindset: "For a human it's really a very unpleasant position to play with Black." He is thinking about chess, not the magnitude of what he is doing. That might be the scariest part for the rest of the field.