India, March 28 -- Tier lists and predictions of all assortments for the Candidates tournament are out, and all that remains now is for the players to get cracking at the board. The March 29-April 16 tournament in Cyprus will see eight players battle for a shot to become reigning world champion Gukesh's challenger.

Qualifying for the Candidates can be a gruelling process, and once that is over, the tournament's unpredictability makes predicting a winner quite the job.

You'd think experience would count for everything in a tournament like this, until you're hit by a cheeky stat: two of the last three winners were debutants - Ian Nepomniachtchi in 2020-21 and Gukesh in 2024. In a tournament where the limits of endurance can be put to the ...