Firouzja Strikes Again To Reenter Top 10; Carlsen, Gukesh Miss Wins
GM Alireza Firouzja scored the day's only classical win, over GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, to open up a 3.5-point lead in Norway Chess 2026 with a perfect 6/6. GM Magnus Carlsen beat GM Vincent Keymer in armageddon, but that was little compensation for a huge miss in a chaotic classical game that could also have gone the way of the German star. World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju forced GM Wesley So into a queen sac but spoiled a win and lost in armageddon.
GM Bibisara Assaubayeva continues to lead Norway Chess Women 2026 after surviving the classical game against GM Zhu Jiner and winning the armageddon tiebreaker. Both other mini-matches went to armageddon as well, with GM Divya Deshmukh beating GM Koneru Humpy to land 1.5 points behind the leader, and GM Anna Muzychuk recovering from yesterday's loss with a win over Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun.
Round three starts Wednesday, May 27, at 11 a.m. ET / 17:00 CEST / 8:30 p.m. IST.
This is a flash report—come back later for full coverage of round two!
Firouzja's second win in a row earned the only three points for a classical win in round two, with Carlsen, So, Assaubayeva, Muzychuk, and Divya scoring 1.5 points to their opponents' single point.
Norway Chess Round 2 Results
Firouzja is guaranteed to be the sole leader after round three as well after opening up a 3.5-point lead over So and Gukesh, while Assaubayeva leads Divya by 1.5 points but can be caught in a single round by four of the remaining players.
Norway Chess Standings After Round 2
Our Game of the Day is Firouzja's win over Praggnanandhaa, which GM Rafael Leitao will analyze below.
After starting with two Whites, Firouzja is Black vs. Gukesh in round three, while Praggnanandhaa-Carlsen is, unexpectedly, a battle between the two players in last place. Assaubayeva faces second-placed Divya, while Ju-Zhu is a battle between the Chinese world numbers three and four.
NM Anthony Levin contributed to this report.
The live broadcast was hosted by IMs Tania Sachdev and Jovanka Houska, and GM David Howell.
Norway Chess 2026 features Open and Women's six-player tournaments for equal prize funds of 1,690,000 NOK (~$182k). It runs May 25 to June 5 in Oslo, with players facing their opponents twice at classical chess (120 minutes/40 moves, with a 10-second increment from move 41). The winner of a classical game gets three points, the loser, zero; after a draw, the players get one point and fight for another half-point in armageddon (10 minutes for White, seven for Black, who has draw odds).
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.
