Sindarov Pulling Ahead of Gukesh With 72 Rating
By Cameron W. · Mon, 02 Nov 2026
Sindarov leads Gukesh by 72 rating points on FIDE’s November list and has just won Clutch Chess. Now the World Championship awaits.
It is rare for a challenger to walk into a world championship match looking like the favorite on paper, and rarer still to do it with a trophy in his bag. Javokhir Sindarov will do exactly that. FIDE's November rating list has him far ahead of reigning champion Gukesh Dommaraju, and days before the list came out he won the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown in Saint Louis, his last event before the match.
A gap with few precedents
On the November list, Sindarov is rated 2782 and ranked fourth in the world. Gukesh is on 2710 and sits 26th. That is a difference of 72 rating points and 22 places, which Chess.com describes as a record for a world championship match since the title was unified in 2006. For comparison, Gukesh's 2024 match against Ding Liren came with a 55-point and 18-place gap, and World Chess notes that Magnus Carlsen went into his 2013 match against Viswanathan Anand 95 points ahead and into his 2016 match against Sergey Karjakin 81 points ahead.
The numbers deserve some caution. A rating gap measures past results, not how two players will fare across 14 classical games against one opponent. World Chess points out that two matches with big gaps, Anand against Boris Gelfand in 2012 and Carlsen against Karjakin, were both decided on tiebreaks. And neither Sindarov nor Gukesh played classical chess in October, according to Chess.com, so the list reflects results from earlier in the year.
A strong tune-up in Saint Louis
The Champions Showdown was a fine way to finish. Sindarov won it with 20½ points, 1½ clear of Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu on 19, with Fabiano Caruana third on 16½ and Hikaru Nakamura fourth on 12. He entered the final day 2½ points behind Praggnanandhaa, then scored 12 points with three wins and three draws, the most of anyone on the day, while the leader lost his key game to Caruana.
Two of those wins stood out. He beat Caruana in a rook endgame after a time scramble left him two pawns up, and he beat Nakamura with the King's Indian Defense, a game Chess.com named the game of the tournament after a bishop sacrifice and, later, two exchange sacrifices. A draw with Nakamura in the Berlin Defense in the last game finished the job. He collected $168,000 including bonuses, from a total prize fund of $425,000. Afterward he described it simply as his last tournament before the world championship match.
It is worth remembering that this was 10-minute chess, not classical. Chess.com does note that Sindarov is second on the rapid list, but the match will be played at a very different pace. What the week really showed was a player who could recover from a bad day. On day two he lost to Caruana in a game he called the worst of his life, and on day three he was winning on the biggest stage the format offers.
Beyond the headline pairing
The same list carried good news for Indian chess. Nihal Sarin climbed 11 points to 2720 and entered the top 20 at a career-best 19th, up from 30th after scoring 5/6 and winning board-two gold at the European Club Cup, according to Chess.com. It is a reminder that the title holder is not the only strong Indian player in the field.
What comes next
The match is in Geneva, with Game 1 on November 24 at the Fondation Martin Bodmer. It is 14 classical games, and the first player to 7.5 points wins; a 7-7 score goes to rapid and blitz tiebreaks. The regulations put the whole event between November 22 and December 12, although FIDE's earlier July announcement still carries an older November 25 to December 15 window. World Chess notes that both players are 20, which it calls the youngest world championship match in history.
Sindarov is the one with the momentum and the numbers. Gukesh, for his part, has said little in the coverage reviewed, and the match will show how much the numbers mean once the clocks start.
Sources
- Chess.com, November FIDE Rating List: Nihal Enters Top 20, Sindarov Leads Gukesh By 72 Points
- World Chess, Gukesh Faces Historic Rankings Gap As Sindarov Takes 72-Point Lead Into World Championship
- Chess.com, Sindarov Plays Game Of Tournament, Wins Final Event Before World Championship
- ChessBase, Sindarov takes Clutch Chess title ahead of World Championship match
- Gazeta.uz, Javokhir Sindarov wins US tournament ahead of World Chess Championship
- ChessBase India, FIDE Rating list November 2026: Nihal Sarin Enters World Top 20
