The amazingly bitter three-way bunfight to become FIDE president has had us glued to our laptops as we hang on every surprising update.
But there is another seriously juicy part of the 2026 FIDE election taking place on he fringes of the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand this month.
FIDE has confirmed 18 candidates for just four elected vice-president positions, after 19 applications were initially received and one was rejected by its Electoral Commission.
The field includes some familiar names: former world champion GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov, former Women's World Champion GM Xu Yuhua, former FIDE deputy president Georgios Makropoulos, GM Igor Glek and former All India Chess Federation secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan.
Also standing is David Llada, the Spanish journalist, photographer and FIDE's ex-PR guru.
Llada, who worked for FIDE from 2019 to 2023, says he is running as an independent candidate to bring more commercial experience and "fresh thinking" to a FIDE Council he argues has suffered from "missed opportunities, untapped potential, mismanagement and poor decision-making."
Perhaps the most politically interesting candidate, however, is Pavel Kolobkov, the former Russian sports minister and Olympic fencing champion who is now a Deputy CEO at Gazprom Neft.
With the Chess Federation of Russia (CFR) suspended, Kolobkov has instead been nominated by Belarus, Cuba and Tajikistan. And he has made clear where his sympathies lie in the presidential race.
But given that the Moscow-based CFR published a report on his nomination on its website, you can assume it has their blessing.
Speaking to the CFR, Kolobkov said he had studied all three presidential candidates' programmes and found Timur Turlov's closest to his own views, highlighting his plans for school chess, digitalisation and pursuing Olympic recognition.
Turlov entered the race after outgoing FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich withdrew, and whether he can inherit the support network behind the previous administration remains one of the big questions of the election.
The vice-presidency contest has already had complications of its own. FIDE's Electoral Commission found that four federations endorsed two different candidates, despite being permitted only one endorsement, while another arrived after the deadline. None of those issues ultimately disqualified the affected candidates.
So it is 18 candidates, four jobs—on top of three presidential tickets and a series of disputes surrounding continental elections.
Samarkand is going to be spicy!