The Karpov International is the annual elite round-robin held in Khanty-Mansiysk in honour of Anatoly Karpov, the twelfth world champion. The 2026 edition is the twenty-third running of the event and was held at the Yugra Chess Academy from 10 through 17 April.
The Tournament
Khanty-Mansiysk — the administrative capital of the Russian Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, in the Russian Far North — has been a sustained centre of Russian chess investment since the early 2000s, hosting World Cup editions in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011, plus this annual round-robin. The Yugra Chess Academy facility, purpose-built in the early 2000s, remains one of the strongest dedicated chess venues in the country and serves as both the tournament site and a year-round training centre.
The 23rd Edition
Ten players, classical round-robin over eight days, with no rapid or blitz tiebreaks in case of multiple-player ties at the top. The 2026 field included two players from the Russian top ten and several invited foreign grandmasters of the 2600–2700 range. The event is FIDE-rated and category 17. Prize fund ₽5 million, distributed across the top eight finishers.
Anatoly Karpov
Karpov won the world championship in 1975 — uniquely by default, when Bobby Fischer declined to defend — and held it through five title matches until losing to Garry Kasparov in 1985. He remained the FIDE world champion through the schism years of the 1990s and was for two decades the most active travelling former world champion. The Khanty-Mansiysk tournament was founded in 2002 in his honour and has run almost continuously since, with Karpov himself a regular attendee at the opening rounds.
Post-2022 Context
The event has continued through the post-2022 isolation of Russian chess from the international circuit. Most non-Russian players in 2026 attended under bilateral arrangements with federations that maintain working chess relations with the Russian Chess Federation. The event remains FIDE-rated; the political context of Russian chess in the post-2022 period is a contested matter that this page does not adjudicate.