GM Jorden van Foreest has now beaten both the top seed and the world champion in Prague after sacrificing a rook to defeat GM Gukesh Dommaraju in round three of the 2026 Prague Chess Festival Masters. Van Foreest moved into a four-way tie for first place with GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Nodirbek Yakubboev, and David Navara after the remaining games were drawn, while all five games were decisive in round three of the 2026 Prague Chess Festival Challengers.Â
Round four begins on Saturday, February 28, starting at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 7:30 p.m. IST.
Masters: Van Foreest Stuns Gukesh
There was just one win in the Masters, but it was a big one.
Round 3 Results: Masters
Van Foreest joined a four-way tie for the lead, while Gukesh dropped to a four-way tie for last place, though it’s very early days, with six rounds to go.Â
Standings After Round 3: Masters
Van Foreest suffered a tough loss to Anton in round two, but he can now boast of beating both the top-seed, GM Vincent Keymer, and the world champion in the space of three rounds. The Dutchman commented: “Of course I’m super-happy! Not only is it my first win against a world champion, but also my first win against Gukesh. Even before he was world champion I played him a couple of times, but I never won against him and he won against me several times.”
I’m super-happy! Not only is it my first win against a world champion, but also my first win against Gukesh.
—Jorden van ForeestÂ
For Gukesh it was a familiar story in Prague this year, as he got hit by a sacrifice, this time of a rook for a knight on d4.
Van Foreest explained his thought process: “He was looking rather calm, and I was like, am I missing something? I didn’t see it, so I thought I had to go for it.” When Gukesh sank into deep thought, Van Foreest’s confidence grew, and even though the world champion defended tenaciously it was an uphill battle: “I’m up a pawn, there’s really no risk—in the worst case it’s a draw, and for him the defense will be always very difficult, even with best play, so I was happy,” said Van Foreest.
Gukesh couldn’t hold this one, and Van Foreest brought home the win.
Jorden van Foreest beats Gukesh and knocks the World Champion out of the Top 10! https://t.co/hgK90zowBL pic.twitter.com/2L1DWwJtUK
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 27, 2026
That’s our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao analyzes below. Â
That result saw Van Foreest regain all the rating he’d lost a day earlier, while Gukesh dropped to world number-13, level with GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, after ending Wijk aan Zee still in the world top 10.Â
The remaining games were drawn, with GM Aravindh Chithambaram vs. GM Parham Maghsoodloo ending in a quiet 30-move draw by repetition. Things also liquidated fast to a draw in Navara vs. GM David Anton, a clash between the winners of the Game of the Day prizes for rounds one and two.
The remaining two games were much harder fought, with the Uzbek duo of Abdusattorov and Yakubboev having real chances against Keymer and GM Hans Niemann respectively. Keymer accepted a miserable pawn structure to trade off queens, which soon left Abdusattorov on the brink of victory. He couldn’t quite find the best path, however, and after 28.Rxc6?! the worst was over for Black.
That meant there was no major change in the battle for the world number-four spot, with Abdusattorov slightly increasing his lead to 6.8 points.
Yakubboev would have edged across the 2700 barrier for the first time in his career with a win over Niemann, but he couldn’t quite find the right path in a tricky endgame after what had been a double-edged opening and middlegame.
Can Gukesh hit back against local hero Navara? That’s one of the questions we’ll get an answer to in Saturday’s round four.
Masters Round 4 Pairings
Challengers: Finek Grabs Lead On Day Of 5 Wins
No complaints could be made about a lack of decisive chess in the Challengers!Â
Round 3 Results | Challengers
16-year-old IM Vaclav Finek’s win over the previously perfect IM Stepan Hrbek was enough to take the sole lead on 2.5/3, while co-leader at the start of the day GM Thomas Beerdsen also lost, to GM Jonas Buhl Bjerre, and was caught by three players.
Standings After Round 3 | Challengers
Finek took the lead after pouncing on the blunder 16…c4?.
The other leader Beerdsen seemed to have reached a safe endgame against the second-seed Bjerre, but we got a beautiful demonstration of how tactical apparently simple positions can be.
Bjerre talked to WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili about the game.
Elsewhere IM Jachym Nemec impressively outplayed GM Surya Ganguly with the black pieces, GM Daniil Yuffa won a study-like endgame after top-seed GM Benjamin Gledura cracked only around move 65, and GM Zhu Jiner finally hit back after two losses to regain the Women’s world number-two spot. She did it vs. GM Divya Deshmukh, against whom she has a dominant score—but lost to in the recent FIDE World Cup.
A fifth classical win for Zhu came despite her going for a risky try against Divya’s Benko Gambit.
When Zhu last started with two losses she won the next five games in a row on the way to clinching a FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament spot. It’ll be hard to repeat that feat in Prague, but it’s seldom wise to rule out the Chinese star. Â
How To Watch
The 2026 Prague Chess Festival takes place on February 25-March 6 at the Don Giovanni Hotel in Prague, Czech Republic. The format is a round-robin with 10 players in Masters, Challengers, and Futures groups, as well as an Open tournament. The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting on move one.
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