Sindarov, Caruana, So, Niemann, Fedoseev All Share Lead On Opening Day
A last-round win by GM Fabiano Caruana over GM Wesley So, who had been leading, left five players on 4/6 after three rounds at the 2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Poland, the first event of the 2026 Grand Chess Tour. Besides Caruana and So, other leading players are GMs Hans Niemann, who outfoxed World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju in a time scramble, Defending Champion GM Vladimir Fedoseev, who bounced back from a loss with two wins, and World Championship Challenger Javokhir Sindarov, who remains undefeated and optimistic as ever.
GMs Alireza Firouzja, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and Gukesh are a point behind (a win in rapid is worth two points), and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is on 1/6, after barely avoiding three losses on the first day. GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek, in last with 0/6, wasn't able to ward off that fate.
Day two, featuring rapid rounds 3-6, starts Wednesday, May 6, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.
Half the field shares the lead, with 24 more games to play in the four remaining days.
Super Rapid & Blitz Poland Standings After Day 1
The five-day rapid and blitz tournament kicks off the 2026 Grand Chess Tour once again at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. In the first tournament of the second decade of the Grand Chess Tour, we have the familiar format: three days of rapid chess, nine rounds with a 25+10 time control, followed by two days of blitz, 18 rounds with 5+2. The rapid is a single round-robin (all-play-all) and the blitz is a double-round robin where all matchups repeat with both colors.
Both the rapid and blitz segments combine as one event, with two points awarded per win in the rapid segment and just one point in the blitz. Besides overall Grand Chess Tour points, the individual event has a tantalizing first prize of $50,000. The tour has a total $2 million prize fund.
While many things remain the same, the lineup of players for this year's tour has changed, even in the last few weeks. First, Gukesh announced on March 31 his withdrawal as a full tour participant. Instead of playing in the classical events, he will just play in two rapid and blitz events this year in the runup to his world championship title defense. His full tour spot has been accepted, actually, by his challenger, Sindarov.
In round five of this event (on Wednesday) we will see them play for the first time since the latter won the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. Even if it won't be in a classical format, the chess public will surely draw some conclusions—especially as we will have no classical games by which to judge Gukesh's form.
Another change was that, sadly, GM Levon Aronian withdrew from the upcoming Super Chess Classic Romania that comes right after this event, citing pneumonia. He'll be replaced in that event by GM Jorden van Foreest.
Due to health reasons, GM Levon Aronian will be unable to participate in the upcoming Super Chess Classic Romania in Bucharest.
— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) April 23, 2026
Dutch Grandmaster Jorden van Foreest will replace Aronian as a full-tour GCT player.
The Grand Chess Tour wishes Levon Aronian a speedy recovery and… pic.twitter.com/rBWKuiTpel
Looking back at our current lineup, we see that last year's winner Fedoseev is in shared first so far. As a wildcard in 2025, he dominated the field to win with three rounds to spare and put up one of the best performances in the history of the event—comparative only to the likes of GMs Magnus Carlsen and Caruana. Fedoseev's back this year to defend his title, and the obvious question is: can he do it again?
Local stars Duda (the only player to win the event besides Fedoseev and Carlsen) and Wojtaszek represent Poland, while the field is rounded out by regular Grand Chess Tour participants Caruana, So, Firouzja, and Vachier-Lagrave. Finally, Niemann plays in the Grand Chess Tour for the first time since the controversy with Carlsen at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, and he's off to a terrific start.
Of the five players in the lead, So looked to be the most stable player for most of the day. He had already captured the sole lead as the only player to win his first two games, first against Fedoseev and then against Wojtaszek. An octopus knight on d3 helped suffocate his opponent in the first game, while he won a nice knight endgame in the second.
As GM Maurice Ashley pointed out, there was a tempting move 73.g6? that would have spoiled the entire win—which he cleverly avoided. Here's a little peek into the kinds of flaming hoops super-GMs jump through when they put away an easy-looking, pawn-up endgame.
It would have been a perfect day for So if not for the last round, where Caruana managed to score a critical victory. The American number-two started off his day with a gift from Vachier-Lagrave, who played a positional masterpiece before blundering a two-move tactic. That would only be the start to MVL's nightmare, as we will see later in the article.
Caruana was allowed to sacrifice his rook to win a pawn, open the king, and immediately regain the black rook on d4. GM Yasser Seirawan said on the broadcast, "He took a very good position and turned it into a loss... that really hurts!"
He took a very good position and turned it into a loss... that really hurts!
—Yasser Seirawan
Caruana then lost in round two against Fedoseev but outplayed So in round three from the white side of the English Opening. Even if the conversion stage in time trouble was a bit nervy, he never let the winning advantage slip. It's a strong first day for Caruana, who plays in Warsaw for the first time since 2022 (having preferred to play in Zagreb in the interim years).
GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day below.
All three Americans are at the top of the standings, and Niemann has so far made the most of his re-entry to the Grand Chess Tour. He's in Poland as a wildcard but told GM Cristian Chirila that he'd like to one day be a full-tour participant. He also revealed that he trained for this event by playing only blitz for one week. The training seems to have paid off, even if he suffered an allergy attack upon arriving to the event. He said, "Sometimes when you're a bit sick, you can play really well."
Sometimes when you're a bit sick, you can play really well.
—Hans Niemann
Niemann played a high-accuracy draw against Sindarov in round one and defeated the world champion in game two. The game had plenty of intrigue, especially as Gukesh knocked over the pieces on move 27 and hit the clock before putting them back on the appropriate squares.
Gukesh, nearly losing on time against Niemann, knocks the pieces over!https://t.co/ZY1lUUBb4Y#GrandChessTour pic.twitter.com/XYGzjROewH
— chess24 (@chess24com) May 5, 2026
The incident was reminiscent of the 2025 FIDE World Blitz Championship last December, where another world champion, Carlsen, was forfeited in round 14 against GM Haik Martirosyan for the same offense. In this case, Niemann was given an extra minute on the clock rather than a forfeit win. "I personally think it should be a forfeit, but it's not my job to decide the rules," he told Chirila.
Niemann, in an equal endgame where he was the one pushing, found and won with a nice trap. Knights are simply magical pieces in time scrambles!
Niemann could have potentially ended with one point more if he converted a winning attack against Vachier-Lagrave in round three. He didn't look upset in the interview, however, and said he's had a stable performance so far.
Another stable performance was that of Sindarov, who could have started with a too stable result of three draws on the first day. He made two draws and, finally, scored a win against Wojtaszek in round three. The game teetered wildly between winning and drawing, though even with his mistakes, Sindarov commented that the position with the open king is always practically difficult for White to defend.
Since winning the Candidates, the Uzbek challenger said he hasn't spent too much time on chess. He trained for "two or three days" before this event and said his goal was just to play well: "I don't try to win this tournament, I just want to play on my level. That's my goal."
I don't try to win this tournament, I just want to play on my level. That's my goal.
—Javokhir Sindarov
Fedoseev, who lost in the first round against So, followed up by beating both Caruana and Firouzja. The French number-one made a losing mistake on move 16, and it took Fedoseev just a minute to double-check the winning idea: shockingly, after 16.h6!, the white rook had no safe squares.
That's it for the players in the top half of the standings. A little lower, we see Gukesh and Firouzja on three points. They had a direct encounter in round one, and there Gukesh—with no time to work out the details—made the wrong capture in an otherwise winning opposite-color bishop endgame.
After that draw and a loss against Niemann, Gukesh finished on the high note of beating Polish number-one Duda. White was pressing a slight advantage until an ill-timed offer to trade queens threw away the game. After 40...Qxh5, 41.Rxc7 would hang the rook on d1, so White lost the pawn for nothing and the black pieces flooded in.
Duda, the third player on 3/6, scored his only win against Wojtaszek after surviving a knight sacrifice for two pawns and a fearsome attack. One of the advantages of having extra material is that you can always give some back, as Duda did in this game—only temporarily!
Firouzja had his own bit of fortune in round two, as he scored against compatriot Vachier-Lagrave. 21.Nbd2?? lost a whole piece, and Firouzja didn't even realize it right away, he said!
Vachier-Lagrave and Wojtaszek are at the bottom of the standings, but we have only seen three rounds out of 27. What surprised you in the tournament so far, and what future surprises might you predict? Let us know in the comments!
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Yasser Seirawan, IM Nazi Paikidze, GM Maurice Ashley, GM Cristian Chirila, IM Irine Sukandar, and WGM Anastasiya Karlovich.
The 2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Poland is the first event on the 2026 Grand Chess Tour and runs May 5-9 in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. The 10 players first compete in a single rapid round-robin with a time control of 25 minutes plus a 10-second increment per move, followed by a blitz double round-robin with a 5+2 time control. The event has a $200,000 total prize fund.
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