Open event at the 46th Chess Olympiad

The tournament is to be played in a Swiss system format. The time control for all games is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, after which an additional 30 minutes are granted; an increment of 30 seconds per move is applied from the first move. Players are permitted to offer a draw at any time. A total of 11 rounds are to be played, and all teams have to be paired in every round.^[3]

In each round, four players from each team face four players from another team; teams are permitted one reserve player who could be substituted between rounds. The four games are played simultaneously on four boards with alternating colours, scoring 1 game point for a win and ½ game point for a draw. The scores from each game are then summed together to determine which team would win the round. Winning a round is worth two match points, regardless of the game point margin, while drawing a round is worth one match point. Teams are ranked in a table based on match points. Tie-breakers for the table are i) the Sonneborn–Berger system; ii) total game points scored; iii) the sum of the match points of the opponents, excluding the lowest one.^[3]

The event takes place from 15 to 27 September 2026. Tournament rounds began on 16 September and will end with the final round on 27 September. All rounds begin at 15:00 local time (UTC+5:00), except for the final round which will begin at 11:00 local time (UTC+5:00). There is one rest day on 22 September, after the sixth round.^[4]

All times are UTC+5:00

The Open event is being contested by a total of 1,032 players from 208 teams.^[5][6] It features eight of the top ten players from the FIDE rating list published in September 2026. Former five-time World Champion and current world no. 1 Magnus Carlsen misses the Olympiad,^[7] and Hikaru Nakamura misses his third consecutive Chess Olympiad.^[8] Hosts Uzbekistan despite being the 3rd seeds are considered the pre-tournament favourites, while the defending champions India, the United States and China their most dangerous rivals.^[9] The Uzbek squad captained by former FIDE World Chess Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov has four players that won gold and bronze at the previous two Olympiads, respectively. The team has the third-highest rating of 2720 and is led by Nodirbek Abdusattorov on the first board, followed by World Championship Challenger Javokhir Sindarov on the second board, then Nodirbek Yakubboev, Shamsiddin Vokhidov and Mukhiddin Madaminov on the remaining boards.^[10][11] Nevertheless, the team with the highest pre-tournament average rating are the United States, consisting of Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Hans Niemann and Awonder Liang as a reserve player, with an average rating of 2753.^[12] Niemann and Liang made their debut at the Chess Olympiads.^[10]

The defending champions India are the second-seeded team with an average rating of 2735.^[13] Their squad captained by Srinath Narayanan includes reigning World Champion and winner of the individual gold medal on the top board at the previous two Olympiads Gukesh Dommaraju on board four, as well as R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin on the first three boards and Vidit Gujrathi as a reserve player. The only change from the gold-winning squad at the Budapest Olympiad is Nihal replacing Pentala Harikrishna.^[8][14] China with the average rating of 2707 started the tournament as the fourth seeds. The team is led by Ding Liren on board one and saw the former World Champion's return to the Chess Olympiads, while Wei Yi, Yu Yangyi, Xu Xiangyu and Kong Xiangrui complete the squad on the remaining boards.^[10][15] Germany are the fifth seeds with an average rating of 2677, captained by Jan Gustafsson, with Vincent Keymer, Matthias Bluebaum, Frederik Svane, Alexander Donchenko and Rasmus Svane on the team.^[16] Other strong teams include the Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Hungary, France and Armenia.^[10][17]

• 
  World Chess Champion Gukesh Dommaraju is playing on board four for India
• 
  World no. 3 Fabiano Caruana is playing on board one for the United States
• 
  Upcoming World Championship challenger and World no. 4 Javokhir Sindarov is playing on board two for Uzbekistan
• 
  World no. 5 Wesley So is playing on board two for the United States
• 
  World no. 6 Vincent Keymer is playing on board one for Germany

• Women's event at the 46th Chess Olympiad