Pragg Ends Sindarov's 53-Game Unbeaten Streak; MVL, Keymer Also Win
GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu outcalculated GM Javokhir Sindarov in round two of the Super Chess Classic Romania 2026 to hand the world championship challenger his first classical loss since early September. There were also wins for GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who beat his French rival GM Alireza Firouzja, and GM Vincent Keymer, who upped the pressure until GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac cracked. GM Fabiano Caruana vs. GM Anish Giri and GM Jorden van Foreest vs. GM Wesley So were drawn.
Round three is on Saturday May 16, starting at 9:10 a.m. ET / 15:10 CEST / 6:40 p.m. IST.
Any fears that we were in for a draw fest in Bucharest were dispelled with a fighting round featuring three decisive games and some lively moments in the remaining two games.
Round 2 Results
We now have three leaders and, of course, three players trailing in last place.
Standings After Round 2
It's hard not to start with the clash between the tournament's youngest players, both aged 20.
Sindarov 0-1 Praggnanandhaa
Before this year, Praggnanandhaa had a dominant score against Sindarov, beating him twice in youth championships, then in the 2022 Chennai Olympiad, and finally in the UzChess Masters in June 2025. Sindarov had picked up just one classical win over his Indian rival in that time, but things were about to change.
Sindarov lost just one more game in 2025, to GM Ivan Cheparinov in round three of the FIDE Grand Swiss on September 6, and then went on a nine-month run that would transform his career. He was unbeaten in the last eight rounds of the Grand Swiss, two rounds of the Chess Bundesliga, 14 classical games as he won the 2025 FIDE World Cup, 14 games in the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Masters, and, of course, 14 games on the way to winning the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. Add the first game in Bucharest and that made a 53-game unbeaten streak.
Praggnanandhaa, meanwhile, has struggled of late. He was the only player Sindarov had actually beat twice in the Candidates, and his performance rating over his last 50 games has been sub-2700, while Sindarov has played on the level of a 2800+ player.
No one doubts Praggnanandhaa's immense potential, however, and the defending champion's victory in Bucharest was not quite the shock statistics might suggest. "Beating him is currently a good thing," is all he said when asked by GM Cristian Chirila about getting revenge.
Praggnanandhaa did add that Sindarov has been "in terrifying form," but the world championship challenger had the misfortune to stumble into an opening line his opponent knew, even if he said he and his second had dismissed the Italian as a likely opening.
15.Nh4!? by Sindarov is an almost new move, but Praggnanandhaa revealed he could actually remember the lines there and had instead been struggling to remember what to do after the main line of 15.Rh4.
He added of the opening approach, "I looked at it three years back when this line was starting to become trendy, and I wanted to play it with White, but too many people played it, so I kind of left it."
That's why, after pausing for seven minutes, Praggnanandhaa played two strong moves, and suddenly Sindarov sank into a 32-minute think only to make a mistake, after which he found himself on the ropes. He wasn't going to give up without a fight, however, and found the only sequence of moves to keep the game alive, sacrificing a knight on h6.
A fascinating struggle ensued with both players making all the correct moves, until Praggnanandhaa dodged an exchange of queens only to allow Sindarov to equalize almost fully, despite being a piece down. It would have been a fantastic save, but there was one more twist, which Caruana flagged on the live broadcast while watching the game. It all came down to one move.
Caruana says that if Sindarov plays 36.f4! he'll make a draw, but it all depends on the move... #GrandChessTour pic.twitter.com/f2B6ijnQDq
— chess24 (@chess24com) May 15, 2026
36.f4! would make a draw the most likely outcome, but 36.Re3? Qg6! allowed Black to untangle and clinch victory.
That's our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao calls "a model game for anyone who wants to improve defensive skills." His analysis is below.
There was action everywhere on Friday, including in the two draws.
Van Foreest vs. So, beginning with the Berlin Defense, augured nothing but a quick and peaceful finish, but instead we could have seen a fantastic move. 19.Bh6!! was the remarkable resource.
Sometimes the most amazing moves are only in the notes! https://t.co/8YC99jI8Is
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) May 15, 2026
Alas, it wasn't played, despite (or because of) Van Foreest investing 48 minutes in the position. You could also understand the Dutch star, however, since Black had various defenses that So would have considered, and the move in the game also led to a relatively comfortable draw.
The other draw was a second effortless draw with the black pieces for Giri, and in fact a second time when he, if anyone, had chances for more. Caruana called the way he approached his opponent's Marshall "a stupid game," adding, "I kind of decided over the board to start freestyling, and you saw the result."
The world number-three identified "probably the only interesting moment in the game" as the choice of how to capture on e5, with GM Peter Svidler in live commentary also flagging the moment as similar to Giri choosing a draw instead of playing on in round one.
The remaining games were both decisive.
Firouzja 0-1 Vachier-Lagrave
This clash between the French numbers one and two had even more spice than usual after the announcement that Firouzja has once more chosen not to represent France at the Olympiad. It also got off to an exciting start, as Firouzja went for 6.f3 against Vachier-Lagrave's trusty Najdorf. In fact, the older player revealed he'd looked at the line in the game with 14.Na5 as late as 15 minutes before it started, before adding, "but still I couldn’t remember the exact details."
Vachier-Lagrave used "very dangerous" and "dodgy" to describe his position, but noted he had counterplay, and in fact things turned remarkably fast. Firouzja underestimated Black's h-pawn and then, instead of accepting a miserable but probably holdable endgame, blundered with 35.Rd4? and was lost after the unassuming 35...Bg5!.
Black simply defends the h4-pawn, it turns out the g2-pawn can't be protected, and there's no way for White to get at the other seemingly randomly scattered black pawns.
Firouzja went on a pawn race that could have given us four queens on the board, but alas we got just three, even if they were in aesthetically pleasing arrangements.
Vachier-Lagrave somewhat stumbled once in what followed, but overall he conducted the second half of the game almost perfectly to pick up a big win.
Vachier-Lagrave summed up: "Honestly, I was not the most confident coming into the classical portion, but I wanted to fight and, compared to last year, make the most of my chances, and so far I’m doing so. "
Honestly, I was not the most confident coming into the classical portion.
—Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
Keymer 1-0 Deac
"Everyone is strong here, but if you trust the rating, he's the kind of underdog," said the German number-one about his approach to playing the Romanian number-one.
Keymer went for an offbeat double fianchetto line in the opening but admitted both to being surprised early on and facing stiff resistance: "What he did was very reasonable, unfortunately!"
Little happened on the board as Deac adopted a passive, waiting approach, but on the clock there was drama, as he got down to a minute around move 25 and was soon making each move with seconds to spare. That didn't necessarily help Keymer's cause, with the German noting, "The good part of this game was when he had zero time!"
Keymer's choice to play aggressively in the run-up to move 40 paid off, and later Deac reacted badly to a series of aggressive pawn pushes. By the end, Keymer was able to finish in style with 50.Re6!, which made checkmate inevitable and provoked resignation.
That was Keymer's first win in his first Grand Chess Tour classical tournament, and suggests the world number-seven is in good form.
He'll need to be, as Praggnanandhaa vs. Keymer is the one clash of leaders in round three, while Vachier-Lagrave vs. Sindarov will be fascinating to watch as Sindarov finds himself in the unusual situation of needing to bounce back.
Round 3 Pairings
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Yasser Seirawan, IM Nazi Paikidze, GM Peter Svidler, GM Cristian Chirila, and WGM Anastasiya Karlovich.
The 2026 Super Chess Classic Romania is the second event on the 2026 Grand Chess Tour and runs from May 13 to 23 at the Museum of the National Bank of Romania in Bucharest. It's a 10-player round-robin with a time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment starting on move one. The prize fund is $475,000.
Previous Coverage:
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
