Firouzja Grabs Sole Lead As 2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia Begins

GM Alireza Firouzja shrugged off his bullet-chess loss to GM Nihal Sarin to take the sole lead on day one of the 2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia with wins over GMs Ivan Saric and Bogdan-Daniel Deac. His 5/6 put him a point ahead of GMs Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer (who bounced back from an opening loss with two wins, including over GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov), and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who had started the day with an impressive win over World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju. 

Day two starts Thursday, July 2, at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CEST / 6:30 p.m. IST.

Carlsen’s Absence Gives Rivals Big Chance

GM Magnus Carlsen has won all four Grand Chess Tour events he’s played in Croatia—a classical tournament in 2019, and the rapid and blitz events in 2022, 2023, 2025. Last year’s edition came hot on the heels of the table-slam incident in Norway Chess, with interest huge as Gukesh dominated the rapid section, beating Carlsen again as part of a five-game winning streak. None other than 13th World Champion Garry Kasparov had commented, “Now we can question Magnus’ domination,” but the world number-one then took over in blitz and won the tournament anyway.

Carlsen is missing this year, while Gukesh plays as one of four wild cards—he’s joined by Abdusattorov, Saric, and Deac, while Keymer, Firouzja, Giri, Praggnanandhaa, and Vachier-Lagrave are tour regulars battling for points and one of four spots in the end-of-season Finals. 

Tour leaders Caruana and So both played in Poland and Romania and skip Croatia to play the two events in St. Louis later this summer, though Keymer can be considered a defacto leader after getting off to a “dream start” in Bucharest by winning the classical event there on his tour debut. 

Grand Chess Tour Standings Before Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia

One player whose tour hopes suffered a big dent was Firouzja, who fell from the stage in Bucharest and badly twisted his ankle. After playing two games from bed he admitted defeat, pulled out of the event, and gained only a single tour point, but while he says he’s been told he’ll need six months to fully recover he told GM Maurice Ashley: “It’s getting better day by day, it’s just about time, I think, and I’m doing all the right treatments. So now I’m able to walk, at least—I have some advantage!”

Firouzja would end day one in the sole lead.

Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia Standings After Day 1

Firouzja is the rapid world number-two, blitz number-four, and perhaps even more feared in bullet chess, but he went into the event after losing the Bullet Chess Championship crown to Nihal, with the Indian star going on a stunning 15-game winning streak as he beat Firouzja in back-to-back matches.

Firouzja called Nihal’s play “impressive” but shrugged off the significance, explaining, “I really didn’t think about it five minutes after the match!”

Firouzja’s start against local hero Saric was somewhat shaky, as 15.Qf3?! gave Black an almost winning position since it wasted a key tempo when Black completed the obvious plan of putting a knight on e5. 

Later, however, Saric went astray, and when Firouzja pushed his pawn to f6 the writing was on the wall.

The game Firouzja preferred, meanwhile, was his win over Deac. He told Ashley: “I think it’s never easy to win against Deac, especially with Black. He’s very good with White, so I’m happy I got that win!”

Firouzja called it, “a very clean game,” with the defining feature perhaps being Deac’s time usage—he made his 25th move with 12 seconds on the clock, while Firouzja had over 18 minutes! For a long time Deac’s position was good on the board, but he gave up a pawn and ultimately came under an attack that worked like clockwork.

Firouzja wrapped up his day by applying pressure against Giri, who found a narrow path to a draw.

Four players ended the day a point behind Firouzja, with three of them getting to four points with a win and two draws. Keymer, meanwhile, had a more interesting path. First he was well beaten by Praggnanandhaa in the first round of the day after choosing the wrong square for his queen.

But then he struck back with a convincing win over GM Jorden van Foreest, before ending with a spectacular win over one of his great rivals, Abdusattorov.

As the middlegame began, GM Fabiano Caruana, who dropped by the St. Louis studio, mentioned that White’s position looked very dangerous and that it was hard to find a way to bail out. At that point, the computer still liked White, but sure enough, Abdusattorov’s 19.f4?! led to trouble, with a key moment coming a couple of moves later. Keymer thought for almost six minutes before going for 21…g5!.

He later explained his reasoning: “It’s risky! You open up this diagonal with the bishop on b2 and queen on c3, so it does feel like it could also be very, very stupid and bad, because not only does it weaken the diagonal, it also means that in the future I cannot use all my pieces to attack, because one piece at least would have to block this diagonal.”

Keymer’s judgment was spot on as he went on to win a powerful game.

That’s our Game of the Day, which Brazilian number-one GM Rafael Leitao analyzes below.

Gukesh’s hopes of repeating his 2025 performance in rapid suffered an early blow as he was put to the sword by Vachier-Lagrave in the first round of the day. “Maxime playing the Jobava London twice—I didn’t quite see that coming!” said Caruana, but it worked to perfection as Gukesh found himself on the ropes and gave up a piece for no real compensation.

Gukesh managed to bounce back, beating Saric, and then held a tricky position against Praggnanandhaa to end the day on 50 percent.

The other player in second place, Giri, could thank his compatriot Van Foreest for playing on in a position where almost any other player would probably have taken a draw. The decision itself wasn’t bad, but ultimately Giri squeezed out a win in a tricky endgame.

The event is only warming up, however, with six rounds of rapid chess and 18 rounds of blitz to follow, so that everyone is still in the hunt.

How to watch?

The 2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia is the third event on the 2026 Grand Chess Tour and runs July 1-5 in the Westin Hotel in Zagreb, Croatia. 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.