Grand Chess Tour announced the list of nine players who will participate in the tour in 2026. Wildcard players for all events will be announced at a later date.

2026 Full Tour players:

• Fabiano Caruana
• Levon Aronian
• Wesley So
• Gukesh Dommaraju
• Praggnanandha Rameshbabu
• Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
• Alireza Firouzja
• Vincent Keymer
• Anish Giri

Full tour participants will compete in both Classical tournaments and two of three Rapid & Blitz events. At the end of the season, the Top-4 players will advance to the GCT final at the St. Louis Chess Club, where the GCT champion will be determined in knockout matches.

Grand Chess Tour 2026 will take place in Poland, Romania, Croatia and USA from May 3 to August 28. The event features a $2,000,000 prize pool across 2 Classical tournaments, 3 Rapid & Blitz events and the Grand Finals. American GM Fabiano Caruana won the 2025 edition of the Tour winning around $290,000.

Credit: Eric Rosen