Ian Nepomniachtchi

Russia's No. 1

“Hikaru? Overall, I certainly wouldn’t call Hikaru the favorite. Clearly, he plays well, and his practical strength hasn’t gone anywhere. But at least in classical chess, he hasn’t maintained his rating for quite some time. To achieve it, he exploited some loopholes in the rules, which I find extremely unappealing. I think he will finish the tournament with around a 50% score.

Fabiano, among all the participants, is the only chess professional in the full sense of the word. He plays a lot and has maintained a rating of 2790-2800 all these years. I think he deserves to win this tournament.

Wei Yi is a ‘Chinese prodigy’ who knocked me out of the World Cup in Tromso when I was 13. He doesn’t play much, of course, but when he does, he usually plays well. In some scenarios, I can even see him as the tournament winner.

Anish Giri is probably the person with the best opening preparation. But I think he is more of a theorist than a practitioner — he just doesn’t often manage to apply his knowledge in practice. But I wouldn’t expect 14 draws from him, like in 2016. Back then, he was even dubbed a draw master…

Sindarov is more of a dark horse than a top favorite. But as a dark horse, I would rank him very, very highly. His current rating is still a bit underestimated — he’s already objectively around 2760 in playing strength. If, as he recently said, he just plays and enjoys the game, then that would be great. But I usually don’t trust all the interviews before a tournament…

Pragg is very prone to risk, but at the same time, he is a very strong practical player. If he manages to bring to the tournament the version of himself from mid-2025, when he was just playing very well tournament after tournament, consistently — then he will probably become one of the contenders for victory.

Esipenko is a quite solid classical-style player. I think it’s important for him to avoid any additional pressure — not to try to play the tournament of his life, but simply to take it game by game. He doesn’t have much experience playing against the elite, but if things go well with the white pieces, he could play quite decently.

Bluebaum is overly dependent on the opening. He does not deviate from theoretical recommendations under any circumstances and simply plays as closely as possible to the best recommended lines. That’s probably a bit of a drawback for him. I don’t think the situation in Samarkand will repeat — he’ll be taken much more seriously than at the Grand Swiss. But overall, I don’t think the tournament will be as rosy for him as the internet jokes about him: Great Bluebaum Sweep, 14/14, etc.”