Van Foreest, Bluebaum Beat Giri, Keymer To Join 5-Way Tie For Lead
It was the day of the underdog in Wijk aan Zee as Dutch number-two GM Jorden van Foreest beat Dutch number-one GM Anish Giri and German number-two Matthias Bluebaum did the same to German number-one GM Vincent Keymer. The winners caught GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Hans Niemann, and Arjun Erigaisi in a five-way tie for the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Masters lead after the remaining games were drawn.
It was all change in the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Challengers as GM Andy Woodward took down the previously perfect IM Lu Miaoyi, allowing GM Aydin Suleymanli to take the sole lead on 2.5/3 after beating IM Eline Roebers. GMs Vasyl Ivanchuk, Daniil Yuffa, and Max Warmerdam also won on a day with a single draw, GM Bibisara Assaubayeva vs. IM Faustino Oro.
Round four starts on Tuesday, January 20, at 8 a.m. ET/ 14:00 CET / 6:30 p.m. IST.
- Masters: Van Foreest, Bluebaum Join The Leaders
- Challengers: Suleymanli Grabs Sole Lead On Day Of 6 Wins
Masters: Van Foreest, Bluebaum Join The Leaders
Tata Steel Masters: Round 3 Results
For a second round in a row we saw two wins in the Masters.
Tata Steel Masters: Standings After Round 3
We now have a five-way tie for first, while everyone is off the mark.
What stood out in the pairings for round three was that we would see the top two players of three countries facing off against each other. Arjun vs. GM Gukesh Dommaraju (the Indian numbers one and two on the live rating list) was perhaps the most anticipated clash, especially as Arjun has an astonishingly good record against the world champion.
The game didn't disappoint, as we got a razor-sharp Queen's Gambit Declined. Both players continued to pour fuel on the fire, particularly with Arjun going for 14.g4!?, while Gukesh rejected the first chance to make a draw with a potential dance of the bishops.
Simon & Jovanka suggest an elaborate draw by repetition, but Gukesh immediately plays on against Arjun! https://t.co/18LhbXp83o pic.twitter.com/NN5EWuNEf4
— chess24 (@chess24com) January 19, 2026
Shortly afterward, however, the players did repeat moves for a draw.
The other two national clashes would prove decisive, however, with the underdog winning in both cases!
Van Foreest 1-0 Giri
Van Foreest beat Giri in tiebreaks in 2021 to clinch the Tata Steel Masters title, but it's mainly been Dutch number-one Giri who's had the bragging rights. Van Foreest noted he hadn't won a game in Wijk aan Zee since beating GM Ju Wenjun in round three in 2024, and added: "Today we went for a big fight and he was also ready for that, for sure. I understand he wanted to get back into the tournament with a win against his client of the last couple of editions!"
I understand he wanted to get back into the tournament with a win against his client of the last couple of editions!
—Jorden van Foreest
Van Foreest is known for his opening inventiveness, and he came up with a slow and elaborate knight maneuver despite having castled queenside—usually a signal for move-by-move attacks on opposite flanks.
13.Nc1 in @jordenvforeest vs. @anishgiri with the idea Nc1-a2-b4 and a knight to d5 is the same maneuver Karpov played in his thematic game against Nunn in Amsterdam in 1985, albeit after kingside castling. Doing it with queenside castling is a nice mix of old an modern chess! pic.twitter.com/OQlTY1b3QW
— Peter Doggers (@peterdoggers) January 19, 2026
The Dutch number-two cautioned:
I’m not going to say this is a great line or something, it’s just a way to play, and engines don’t mind it for Black at all. Not the Najdorf refutation, if you’re looking for it, but it’s something to get a game at least, and in modern chess what else can you really be looking for?
Giri reacted well but swapped off queens into a potentially difficult position. One missed detail and he was on the ropes, and, low on time, he couldn't find a way to untangle. Van Foreest's impressive victory is our Game of the Day, which GM Dejan Bojkov analyzes below.
The other decisive game was a second loss in a row for the top seed Keymer.
Keymer 0-1 Bluebaum
Bluebaum's escape against Keymer in the penultimate round of the FIDE Grand Swiss saw Bluebaum qualify for the FIDE Candidates Tournament in place of his higher-rated countryman. The stakes are lower in Wijk aan Zee, but once again things went Bluebaum's way.
"My first two games were incredibly boring," he confessed, and the third could also have been an uneventful draw. When asked who won the opening battle, Bluebaum responded, "Timewise, me; positionwise, I have no clue!"
When the queens faced off against each other on b3 and b6, their exchange would have likely led to a draw, but Bluebaum quipped, "I guess none of us wanted to be the stupid person to actually exchange the queens, so we both felt smart by leaving them here."
The deadlock was broken when Keymer's 17.h3?! allowed, or even provoked, 17...Bh4+.
18.g3? fails tactically to Black capturing on g3 with the bishop and then on e3 with the rook, so that the king was forced to move. Keymer chose d2 but suddenly, after 18...Qd8!, the German number-one ended up in a world of hurt.
Bluebaum noted, "Either this Bh4-Qd8 is incredibly dumb because it’s just not working, or it’s actually smart because I keep the queens on the board and his king is in the center." It was the latter, and it was remarkable how fast Keymer's position fell apart until, lost on the board and the clock, he resigned.
German no. 1 Vincent Keymer resigns against German no. 2 Matthias Bluebaum, and the top seed has now lost 2 games in a row! https://t.co/XVXK5Ao0vB#TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/8XWG75eD1G
— chess24 (@chess24com) January 19, 2026
Bluebaum said Tata Steel Chess will be his last tournament before playing the Candidates, and it helps that the time control is exactly the same. It also helps if you're up on the clock. As he put it: "Today I was really enjoying my life—I could walk around while he is suffering in a lost position with no time!"
There was little to note in the draws GM Javokhir Sindarov vs. GM Vladimir Fedoseev, Niemann vs. GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, and GM Aravindh Chithambaram vs. Abdusattorov, though Aravindh did play the relatively rare and recently named Naroditsky Variation of the Four Knights with 4.Nd5!?.
Abdusattorov found no way to punish that offbeat opening.
GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu won a pawn against GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen, and while he was left frustrated by a 75-move draw, it was still a first half-point on the scoreboard after losses in the first two rounds.
Challengers: Suleymanli Grabs Sole Lead On Day Of 6 Wins
In the Challengers, meanwhile, almost all games were decisive.
Tata Steel Challengers: Round 3 Results
We got a new sole leader, 20-year-old Suleymanli, though no fewer than seven players are half a point behind.
Lu had led on 2/2 going into the round, but though she made the time control with a roughly equal position, she was outplayed by Woodward in what followed.
That gave a chance for someone to take over the lead, and it was 20-year-old Suleymanli who seized the opportunity. It was close, since on move 59 he was down to just 39 seconds against Roebers. The Dutch star went astray, however, and soon there was no way back.
Dutch GM Max Warmerdam finally got off the mark after playing the Center Game (1.e4 e5 2.d4!?) against GM Panesar Vedant, while there were also wins for GM Marc'Andria Maurizzi (over IM Carissa Yip), and Yuffa (over GM Erwin l'Ami) to take those players into a seven-way tie for second place.
They were joined in that tie by 56-year-old GM Vasyl Ivanchuk, who provided the single most exciting moment of the whole day.
He had a promising position against GM Velimir Ivic, but found himself in the situation of having exactly one second left on his clock to make his 40th move—the last before 30 minutes would be added. Ivanchuk commented, "I understand that this is hopeless, but suddenly he made a move, I played, and I see there is 30 minutes, and then I see that my position is also good!"
Ivanchuk had ONE SECOND to make the last move before getting any extra 30 minutes, and he made it! 😆 the whole venue burst out in applause pic.twitter.com/FOUvHN53fS
— Chess.com (@chesscom) January 19, 2026
As GM Simon Williams and then Ivanchuk himself pointed out, Ivic could likely have won by making a completely random move that there would be no time to understand and respond to.
In the end, Ivanchuk went on to win, even if it came down to seconds once again.
Ivanchuk is happy to be in Wijk aan Zee for the first time in 11 years and is also planning to play some checkers.
L'Ami is next up for Ivanchuk, while Gukesh-Praggnanandhaa in round four of the Masters is a repeat of the 2025 playoff for the title.
The 88th edition of Tata Steel Chess takes place January 17-February 1, 2026, in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. Both the Masters and Challengers groups are 14-player round-robin tournaments. The time control is 120 minutes for 40 moves followed by 30 minutes to the end of the game, with a 30-second increment only from move 41. No draw offers are allowed before move 40.
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.
