News
Erdogmus, Van Foreest Climb To 2nd As Bluebaum Beats Gukesh
14-year-old Erdogmus has won 3 of his last 4 games and next plays Gukesh, who has lost 3 of his last 4! Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess.

Erdogmus, Van Foreest Climb To 2nd As Bluebaum Beats Gukesh

Avatar of Colin_McGourty
Colin_McGourty
| 45 | Chess Event Coverage

"I thought I'd never win a chess game again," said GM Matthias Bluebaum after beating World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju with Black in round nine of the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Masters. GM Jorden van Foreest demolished GM Vincent Keymer in just 26 moves and is joined half a point behind leader GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov by 14-year-old GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, who outplayed GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen in time trouble. Defending Champion GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu finally grabbed a first win, in an 84-move endgame grind against GM Aravindh Chithambaram.

GM Andy Woodward took down GM Daniil Yuffa to grab the sole lead in the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Challengers after GM Marc'Andria Maurizzi lost to GM Max Warmerdam. GM Aydin Suleymanli is now in sole second place after defeating IM Faustino Oro, while IM Lu Miaoyi ended a sequence of six losses by defeating GM Velimir Ivic. 

Round 10 starts on Wednesday, January 28, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CET / 6:30 p.m. IST.

Masters: Erdogmus, Van Foreest Climb To 2nd As Gukesh Struggles Continue

Coming back from the rest day, we got four decisive games, including two tough losses for pre-tournament favorites.

Tata Steel Masters: Round 9 Results

GM Javokhir Sindarov drew with Abdusattorov and was caught in a three-way tie for second place by Erdogmus and Van Foreest. It's notable that four of the rating favorites of the event—Keymer, Gukesh, GM Arjun Erigaisi, and Praggnanandhaa—are languishing on 4/9, or "minus one."  

Tata Steel Masters: Standings After Round 9

Going into round nine, the key game at the top was second-place Sindarov playing White against his compatriot Abdusattorov, with the chance of leapfrogging into the lead. As it happened, however, Abdusattorov got to reel out preparation and was soon 50 minutes up on the clock. The lead was maintained all game, and although White seemed to have an edge, it never became anything tangible.

Sindarov failed to topple his countryman Abdusattorov. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess.

That draw meant Abdusattorov kept the lead, but Sindarov could be caught in second place. He was, and by two players.

Van Foreest 1-0 Keymer

Keymer went into the Tata Steel Chess Masters as the top seed, but although he's won three games, he's now lost four, with this game the most brutal yet. Van Foreest, meanwhile, has won three games but lost only one, and was understandably thrilled: "I didn’t expect to win today and especially the way it went. It's an amazing feeling—maybe the strongest player I've ever beaten!"

Van Foreest did it with the London System, an opening he said is regarded as "boring" but which he'd used seven or eight years ago to score some nice wins. This one would be the nicest yet, and owed a lot to the move 9.h4 that the Dutchman had looked at on the morning of the game.  

Van Foreest explained he'd borrowed it from his friend GM Amin Tabatabaei, who had played the move and lost to GM David Anton in round three of the 2024 Spanish Team Championship played in the Spanish African enclave of Melilla—an event notorious for GM Kirill Shevchenko being caught cheating. Van Foreest was sitting next to Tabatabaei on board two and recalled that despite the result, the Iranian grandmaster had been completely winning.

Keymer's 9...Nc6?! was already questionable, and by move 17, White was dominant, with Van Foreest getting a round of applause from the local crowd.

That's our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao describes as a "masterpiece."


Jorden van Foreest played one of his best games. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess.

The game that saw Erdogmus also catch Sindarov was no masterpiece, but what the Turkish prodigy is doing is remarkable.

Van Nguyen 0-1 Erdogmus

Fourteen-year-old Erdogmus had a slow start in Wijk aan Zee, but after losing in round five, he's been on fire.

A third win in four games has taken Erdogmus, already by far the highest rated 14-year-old in chess history, to a live rating of 2687.9, a couple of wins away from hitting 2700 over a year earlier than the current record holder, GM Wei Yi. Refreshingly, Erdogmus doesn't hide the fact he'd like to hit that mark, telling WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni: "Of course it’s on my mind. I want to become 2700 quickly and playing good chess—that’s my goal."

I want to become 2700 quickly and playing good chess—that's my goal.

—Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus

The latest win, over Van Nguyen, mainly came down to the clock. With five and a half minutes for 14 moves, Erdogmus was objectively in real trouble, but his Czech opponent had only two minutes, so that Erdogmus could comment, "I was feeling comfortable because he was low on time, he was closer to flagging!"

Van Nguyen had pulled off a great escape against Bluebaum in the same situation a round earlier, but this time he collapsed.

After three wins in four games, Erdogmus will now face a player who's lost three of his last four games—World Champion Gukesh!

Gukesh 0-1 Bluebaum

Early in the round, GM Jan Gustafsson used Bluebaum as an example of how painful playing chess can be.

Bluebaum himself said after the game, "Yesterday and the whole rest day I thought I’d never win a chess game again, but now I feel a bit better!" He was referring to the completely winning position he'd spoiled against Van Nguyen in round eight, but in round nine, he comprehensively outplayed the world champion. Bluebaum commented, "I didn’t expect it today, I was just wanting to be solid, but I know it’s his style to always try to go for a big fight."

Bluebaum's win was a fifth decisive game in a row for Gukesh. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess.

In the end, things couldn't possibly have gone better for the German number-two.

At a live rating of 2695.1, Bluebaum is just one win away from going into the FIDE Candidates as a 2700 player for the first time in his career, while Gukesh is languishing two points behind the Wijk aan Zee leader. He has good company, however: Keymer, Arjun, and Praggnanandhaa, who reached that mark with the day's last win.

Praggnanandhaa 1-0 Aravindh

Aravindh and Praggnanandhaa played the day's longest game. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess.

Defending Champion Praggnanandhaa has had a tough tournament, but managed to remain calm. He explained: "I started with two losses, which is not a great thing, and since then my opponents have also been playing well, so I didn’t really get many chances." He added, "my play is not as bad as the result looks."

His overdue first win could also have slipped away, since Aravindh came close to holding a draw a pawn down, but as Praggnanandhaa mentioned, "once I got my rook active it's quite tricky."

The day's remaining Masters games were drawn, with little to report in Arjun-Niemann and Giri-Fedoseev.

Challengers: Andy Woodward Grabs Sole Lead

Five games were decisive in the Challengers, but it could have been all seven, since GMs Bibisara Assaubayeva and Vasyl Ivanchuk both had to pull off great escapes.

Tata Steel Challengers: Round 9 Results

Woodward's incredible 7.5/8 pace since his first-round loss has finally taken him into the sole lead after Maurizzi lost. Suleymanli, who tied for first place in 2025, is now the closest pursuer with four rounds to go.

Tata Steel Challengers: Standings After Round 9

"Nothing spectacular, I would say," said Woodward of a game against Yuffa that went from better to won in the space of a couple of moves. That was Woodward's seventh win in eight games, and gave him the sole lead. How does that feel?

It feels great to be in the lead. I was in the lead for a moment, and then it got taken away very quickly, so of course it's great to have it back, but there are still four more very interesting games, and I also still have to play Maurizzi, among other really strong players.

Maurizzi had been co-leader but fell to defeat against Warmerdam, who admitted he'd had to struggle with the desire to make a draw by repetition midway through the game. It was worth playing on for the attractive finish to a checkmating attack.

So Woodward leads Maurizzi by a full point, but Suleymanli took the chance to move within half a point of the leader with a convincing win over Oro, who went astray on move 11 of a Caro-Kann and was never given a chance to get back into the game.

Faustino won three games out of four, but has since lost three of the next four. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess.

Other notable results included a convincing win for 15-year-old Lu over Ivic, ending a sequence of six losses in a row, and Assaubayeva escaping with a draw against IM Carissa Yip. This was the last chance:

That leaves Yip needing to score 3/4 for a final GM norm—she's also up to 2479.4 on the live rating list, with 2500 the goal to fulfil the grandmaster requirements. Becoming a grandmaster is a huge goal in every chess player's career, but for Yip, it would also mean a $100,000 prize from Jeanne Sinquefield.

Yip was incredibly close to a win that would have left her close to the grandmaster title. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess.

We're down to the final four rounds to go in Wijk aan Zee, and round 10 will feature the previously mentioned Erdogmus-Gukesh as well as Abdusattorov-Fedoseev and Sindarov-Van Foreest.  

How To Watch
You can watch the tournament on the Chess24 YouTube or Twitch channels. You can also check out the games on our dedicated events page.
IM Jovanka Houska and GM Jan Gustafsson hosted the broadcast.

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:

Avatar of Colin_McGourty
Colin McGourty

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.

More from Colin_McGourty
Caruana To Play Carlsen For FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship Title

Caruana To Play Carlsen For FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship Title

Carlsen Wins Group, Joined By Caruana, Keymer, Abdusattorov In Semifinals

Carlsen Wins Group, Joined By Caruana, Keymer, Abdusattorov In Semifinals