Five Rounds In, One Player Has Seized Control

Before the tournament, I simulated the Candidates 100,000 times. Nakamura was the clear favorite at 32%. Caruana was close behind at 26%. Sindarov? A 4.2% long shot, grouped with Esipenko and Bluebaum in the “would need a miracle” tier.

Five rounds later, the tournament has been flipped on its head.

Javokhir Sindarov has 4.5/5 – four wins and a draw against the strongest field in years. He’s beaten Esipenko, beaten Caruana in a direct clash between co-leaders, and just took down Nakamura with the black pieces in Round 5. At 20 years old, he’s playing the tournament of his life.

I’ve now run 320,000 fresh simulations from the current position. Here’s where things stand.

The New Odds

Player Score Pre-Tournament After Round 5 Change
Sindarov 4.5/5 4.2% 48.2% +44.0
Caruana 3.5/5 25.8% 39.2% +13.4
Giri 2.5/5 12.8% 5.3% -7.5
Praggnanandhaa 2.5/5 12.2% 2.3% -9.9
Bluebaum 2/5 0.8% 0.1% -0.7
Wei Yi 2/5 11.1% 2.3% -8.8
Nakamura 1.5/5 32.0% 2.6% -29.4
Esipenko 1.5/5 1.2% 0.1% -1.1

The numbers tell a stark story. The “Big Two” of pre-tournament predictions – Nakamura and Caruana – combined for 58% of simulated wins before Round 1. Now Sindarov alone holds 48%. Nakamura has gone from clear favorite to a 2.6% long shot, a collapse of nearly 30 percentage points in five rounds.

A Two-Horse Race

This is now a Sindarov-Caruana tournament. Together they account for 87% of all simulated wins. The gap between them (9 percentage points) is smaller than the gap between Caruana and third-place Giri (34 percentage points).

Sindarov leads Caruana by a full point – a significant margin with 9 rounds to play. But they still have one more head-to-head meeting: Caruana with white against Sindarov in the second half. Our simulations flag this as the single most impactful remaining game in the tournament, with a 49 percentage-point swing between the best and worst outcomes for Caruana.

If Caruana wins that game, we’re back to a coin flip. If Sindarov holds a draw, it’s essentially over.

Everyone Else: Still Alive, Barely

Giri sits in the best position outside the top two at 5.3%, but even that requires a near-perfect second half plus results going his way. The math is brutal: two points behind Sindarov and a full point behind Caruana, Giri likely needs to win 4-5 of his remaining 9 games while the leaders falter. It’s possible. It’s not probable.

Nakamura’s fall is the most dramatic storyline. The highest-rated player in the field, the pre-tournament favorite, the blitz monster who was supposed to dominate tiebreaks – he’s at 1.5/5 with two losses and three draws. Three points behind Sindarov with 9 rounds left, his 2.6% survival odds are actually lower than Sindarov’s pre-tournament long shot number. That’s how badly things have gone.

Praggnanandhaa (2.5/5) and Wei Yi (2/5) are in similar positions at 2.3% each. Both would need something historic to pull off from here.

The Tiebreak Twist

Tiebreaks occur in 18.4% of simulations – roughly unchanged from the pre-tournament rate of 20.6%. But the dynamic has shifted dramatically.

Before the tournament, Nakamura was the big tiebreak beneficiary. Now it’s Caruana who benefits most: his win probability jumps from 38% (classical only) to 44% (with tiebreaks). That’s his path back into the tournament – stay within striking distance, force a tie, and win the speed playoff.

Sindarov, conversely, is hurt by tiebreaks. His win probability drops from 52% in classical-only finishes to 33% when tiebreaks happen. His rapid rating of 2727 is solid but not dominant, and he’d prefer to lock up the tournament outright in classical play rather than risk a speed chess showdown.

The takeaway: if you’re rooting for Sindarov, you want him to build an insurmountable lead. If you’re rooting for Caruana, you want a tight finish.

What Score Does It Take to Win?

Not all 9-point finishes are created equal. The chart below flips a simple question: if a specific player finishes with X points, how often do they actually win the tournament? Hover over any point to see the exact conversion rate and sample size.

The gap between Sindarov and the field is visible at every score level. At 9.0 points, Sindarov converts 54% of the time compared to Caruana’s 51%. That gap is his one-point head start at work – even when they finish on the same score, Sindarov’s path there required fewer wins from a stronger position, meaning less chance of a tiebreak.

At 8.5 points, the picture gets more interesting. Caruana converts at 24% versus Sindarov’s 26% – still close, but both roughly double the rate of Giri (14%) or Praggnanandhaa (15%). The middle pack needs to score higher just to have the same chance of winning, because they need Sindarov to collapse first.

The convergence at 10+ points tells the real story: score 10 or more and it barely matters who you are – everyone wins 90%+ of the time. But the realistic finishing range for this tournament is 8.5-9.5, and that’s exactly where Sindarov and Caruana’s advantages are most visible.

The Games That Will Decide It

Not all remaining games are created equal. Here are the five matchups that our simulations flag as most tournament-altering:

Game Max Swing
Caruana vs. Sindarov 49 pp
Sindarov vs. Giri 33 pp
Giri vs. Sindarov 32 pp
Caruana vs. Giri 32 pp
Sindarov vs. Praggnanandhaa 32 pp

Sindarov appears in four of the five most impactful games. That’s what happens when you’re the leader – every result either cements your position or opens the door for others. Circle the Caruana-Sindarov rematch on your calendar. It might decide who plays Gukesh.

What To Watch For

Here’s your cheat sheet for the second half:

  • The rematch: Caruana-Sindarov (Caruana with white) is the single most important game remaining. A 49-point swing.
  • Sindarov’s Giri games: Two meetings with Giri remain, and they combine for 65 points of potential swing. Giri is the most likely player to cut into Sindarov’s lead.
  • Caruana’s consistency: He doesn’t need fireworks – just steady results and one big game against Sindarov. His path is the tiebreak.
  • Can anyone play spoiler? Nakamura, Wei Yi, and Praggnanandhaa may be out of contention, but their results against Sindarov and Caruana will shape who wins.

After every round, check out the live simulations page for updated predictions. You can filter by game outcomes to see how any result changes the odds in real time.