Wildcard Niemann Wins Super Rapid & Blitz 2026 With Clutch Finale

GM Hans Niemann has won the 2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Poland, the biggest tournament win of his career so far, to earn the $50,000 first prize. Following up on last year's winner, GM Vladimir Fedoseev, it's the second year in a row that a wildcard wins the event.

Niemann finished all five days in the lead, but a loss against World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju seriously put the tournament win in jeopardy with two rounds left.  GM Fabiano Caruana, with five wins in a row at the 11th hour, caught him at this point. Finally, the champion won both of the last two games, against GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda and GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek, to win without any tiebreaks.

We don't have to wait long for the second Grand Chess Tour event; it starts next week in Bucharest! The first round of Super Chess Classic Romania 2026, a classical tournament, is on May 14 starting at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 6:30 p.m. IST.

Niemann finished first, Caruana second, and GM Wesley So third. It's an all-American podium.

Super Rapid & Blitz Poland Standings After Day 5

You can see the breakdown of prizes below. The total prize purse was $200,000. Note that Niemann was a wildcard for this event, so Caruana leads the Grand Chess Tour leaderboard as a full participant.

On paper, the journey looks smoother than it really was. Niemann won the rapid tournament and ended each day with his name first on the standings. Because he had built such a lead in the rapid portion, he said after the first day of blitz, "I couldn't believe that I could still lose three games in a row and still be leading!"

I couldn't believe that I could still lose three games in a row and still be leading!

—Hans Niemann

The good news for Niemann was that after his third consecutive loss, they ran out of rounds to play on Friday. When he returned on Saturday, he was back in the driver's seat. He outplayed and beat GM Alireza Firouzja in round 10 (though the computer shows a way to draw even with a rook less at the end), and then fortunately won on time just as Fedoseev bungeed from a losing position to, suddenly, a winning one. 

Hans Niemann increases his lead to a full point over Wesley So after Vladimir Fedoseev loses on time just when he was getting winning chances! https://t.co/005doT6XYR pic.twitter.com/HWDiJus2A4

— chess24 (@chess24com) May 9, 2026

So, who started with a win over Caruana, could have caught up if he had won his direct encounter with Niemann in the next game. Instead, we got the infamous 14-move draw in the Berlin Defense, and Niemann was one game closer to the goal.

The game after that, Caruana picked up a win against Niemann in their direct encounter, but So also lost that same round. Rooks don't belong in front of passed pawns, and 55.Ra1? was a passive defense that World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju eviscerated.

It was a dramatic switchback for Gukesh, who had just suffered a loss in a bishop vs. rook endgame against Fedoseev the round before, a theoretical draw only if the white king could reach the corner square the opposite color of his own bishop. In this case, the king needed to reach a1 or h8 for the draw. Coming back from this was a sign of true strength.

Still on track, despite a loss, Niemann beat GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave rather easily when his opponent opted for a forcing sequence that left himself a pawn down.

After Niemann drew GM Javokhir Sindarov, he was a point ahead of So and Caruana, but a collapse against Gukesh in time trouble could have sent him into a spiral. That loss, coupled with Caruana winning a fifth time in a row, meant that the American number-two had finally caught up. "After I lost that game to Gukesh, anything could have happened!" Niemann said at the award ceremony.

After I lost that game to Gukesh, anything could have happened!

—Hans Niemann

Caruana's fifth win came against Wojtaszek and it was an opening disaster. White's provocative 5.Bd3 backfired, and by sacrificing a pawn Caruana took over the initiative—quickly winning a piece in a few moves.

Caruana's wins were, in order, against Vachier-Lagrave, Niemann, Gukesh, Duda, and Wojtaszek. Two more wins and he would have "pulled a Fabi," the commentators pointed out, just as he won seven games in a row in the Sinquefield Cup 2014.

He was, in fact, up a pawn and winning against Firouzja in the penultimate round, but finally nerves got to him. It's easy to say in analysis that pushing pawns with 24.a4 and 25.b4 is obvious—just push passed pawns, right?—but it's never so straightforward at the board, with a clock ticking and the spectators watching and your opponent breathing directly across from you, the sound of your heart beating in your ears.

As Caruana slowed down, Niemann sped up and won a brilliant attacking game against Polish number-one Duda. Starting with 21.Rf5!, he offered an exchange for several moves in a row, and then lifted his other rook to sacrifice that one too. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the power play we saw in the Game of the Day.

Niemann was a half-point ahead of Caruana going into the last round, and both players had Black—Niemann against Wojtaszek, who had just lost three games in a row, and Caruana against Fedoseev, who had just beaten Sindarov and drawn So. Caruana won on demand, after all, but it wasn't enough; so did Niemann.

Asked about the decision to play for more than a draw in his last game, Niemann said, "I didn't see much risk with the two bishops," and, "I'm happy I went for the win and it paid off!" He also commented on Caruana's performance, "It was very impressive from Fabi and he put on a lot of pressure." In the blitz segment alone, Caruana had the best final score.

Standings After 18 Rounds | Blitz Only

It's the first time Niemann has been invited to a Grand Chess Tour event since the 2022 Sinquefield Cup. He called it a "great honor and privilege" to win the tournament and mentioned that he was "shocked" when he received the invitation, which he said he accepted in five minutes.

Caruana scored an impressive 6.5 points out of the last seven games, and a half-point more would have been enough for tiebreaks. Still, he leads the Grand Chess Tour and rises six spots in the world blitz live rankings with a 31-point gain. 

World Blitz Live Rankings

Every game in the last round was decisive, by the way, with Black winning four out of the five games. So was Niemann's closest rival for most of the tournament, and with a win over Sindarov he finished third, three points ahead of Fedoseev. That also leaves him in second place on the Grand Chess Tour leaderboard.

Blitz Round 18

After a rocky start—starting the blitz portion in second-to-last place—Firouzja recovered convincingly and is third on the Grand Chess Tour standings. Also on 17 points is Gukesh, who withdrew from full tour participation. In his three encounters with the world championship challenger, Sindarov, he had two losses and one win.

Sindarov won their last game with the black pieces, and it was rather convincing from the opening. The last chance to defend was 35.Rd1!, giving up a piece temporarily to win it back with the d-pawn. In the game, Sindarov's passed c-pawn won.

It's a small moral victory for Sindarov, but we can draw only so many conclusions from one rapid game and two blitz games. He also finished a half-point behind Gukesh in the tournament. At the moment, it's unclear if we'll see a classical encounter between the two before their world championship match—but we may, perhaps at the 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad 2026 in September. Registrations have not yet been announced.

Like Sindarov, on 16.5 points were Duda and Vachier-Lagrave, who is in last place on the Grand Chess Tour leaderboard. Wojtaszek ended four points behind that, but one consolation is that he defeated the reigning world champion in two of their three encounters in this event.

That's a wrap for our coverage of this year's first Grand Chess Tour event, but we'll be back next week to cover the next! Read more about the 2026 Super Chess Classic Romania.

The 2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Poland was the first event on the 2026 Grand Chess Tour and ran May 5-9 in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. The 10 players first competed 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 had a $200,000 total prize fund.

Previous coverage:

• Day 4: Niemann Leads By Half A Point; So, Caruana, Fedoseev Catch Up
• Day 3: Niemann Leads After Rapid Segment, 18 Blitz Games To Go
• Day 2: So, Niemann Share Lead; Gukesh Beats Sindarov With Fist Pump
• Day 1: Sindarov, Caruana, So, Niemann, Fedoseev All Share Lead On Opening Day
• Caruana, Gukesh Among 2026 Grand Chess Tour Participants