Round two of the 2026 Sinquefield Cup featured wins on four out of five boards, with the white pieces scoring every point. GM Levon Aronian came back from the dead to beat GM Vincent Keymer, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beat GM Sam Sevian in a complicated ending, GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu outplayed World Championship Challenger Javokhir Sindarov, GM Wesley So left GM Jorden van Foreest with a second consecutive loss. The one draw was GM Anish Giri vs. GM Fabiano Caruana.Â
The 2026 Cairns Cup featured another three decisive games that left two players in the lead on a perfect 2/2, GM Tan Zhongyi and IM Alice Lee. Tan beat GM Humpy Koneru, while Lee defeated the third co-leader, GM Divya Deshmukh. IM Carissa Yip recovered from yesterday’s loss and gave GM Alexandra Kosteniuk a 0/2 score. The two draws were GM Bibisara Assaubayeva vs. GM Vaishali Rameshbabu and IM Stavroula Tsolakidou vs. GM Anna Muzychuk.Â
Round three of both tournaments is on Wednesday, August 12, starting at 1 p.m. ET / 19:00 CEST / 10:30 p.m. IST.
Caruana, who started the round as the sole leader, has been joined by four more players. Two rounds in, half the field is in the lead.
Sinquefield Cup | Round 2 Standings
Remarkably, in the Cairns Cup, two players already lead by a full point.
Cairns Cup | Round 2 Standings
Sinquefield Cup Round 2: Nearly All Decisive Games
There was just one draw, and in that game, too, Giri got a small advantage out of the opening. Caruana defended with 99 accuracy, however, and drew with an isolated d-pawn in the endgame.
Another game that looked like it was heading to a draw, after blows exchanged in the middlegame, was So vs. Van Foreest. As GM Yasser Seirawan put it on the broadcast: “Jorden is coming to grips with the horrible realization he’s going to lose a rook and pawn endgame that was a draw.” It’s a second loss in a row for the Dutchman, who played both rounds with the black pieces but has generally been fine out of the opening.
The major turnaround of the day was Aronian vs. Keymer. In fact, it was Keymer who was winning for most of the heavy-piece endgame, which Aronian had to play with an open king. That Aronian would win was at some point unthinkable. But as he said after the game, “I think when you’re growing up without electricity and water, and you live like that for four years, you’re not afraid of anything anymore.”
GM Rafael Leitao goes over the Game of the Day below.
Praggnanandhaa lost twice against Sindarov in his most important tournament of the year, the Candidates. Since then, however, the Indian grandmaster has beaten the world championship challenger in the 2026 Super Chess Classic Romania and now the Sinquefield Cup. He said of this exciting, generational matchup: “We barely have draws… Javokhir is someone who pushes to the end and I enjoy going for it as well.”
The game started as a Queen’s Gambit Declined but we saw opposite-sides castling and, eventually, Praggnanandhaa squeezed out a win in a pawn-up endgame that was defensible for Sindarov. The torture lasted 95 moves.
Vachier-Lagrave played a surprise on the very first move. Rather than his lifelong 1.e4 opener, he opted for 1.c4 in this game. He explained in the interview, “e4 has quite too many direct lines” and that he wanted a fight.
MVL on playing 1.c4 rather than the “best by test” 1.e4.
“I just feel like in this tournament I need more fights, more pieces on the board.”
Maurice Ashley: “Is that somehow endorsing c4 over e4?”
MVL: “These days, yeah, e4 has quite too many direct lines.” pic.twitter.com/BZBtRczHcI
— chess24 (@chess24com) August 11, 2026
The French super-GM, who was “happy to be showing very decent chess today and yesterday,” said, “the position was really complicated from start to finish.” It was, but the decisive moment came when Sevian, playing with a pawn for the exchange, overlooked the tactical blow 33.Ra8!. The Frenchman won the b-pawn and eventually the game, though defensive chances still existed with White’s open king.Â
On Wednesday, just one pair of leaders faces off: the all-American Caruana vs. So. With half the field leading, all the games will have great significance.
Round 3 Pairings
Cairns Cup Round 2: Tan, Lee Lead By Full Point Already
The majority of games were decisive in the Cairns Cup as well with just two very solid, very accurate draws.
Tan picked up her second win against Humpy, a disappointing fate for the Indian grandmaster who was winning in yesterday’s game but only managed to draw. In what started as a Colle System, Tan’s 25.b4! was the star move of the game, ripping open the queenside. Just three moves later, Black gave up the exchange for not enough counterplay.
Lee, on the other hand, took out her co-leader by—just as she did in round one against Kosteniuk—outplaying her older opponent in a pawn-up rook endgame that could have been held.
Divya is on 50% after that loss, as is Yip after winning her game against Kosteniuk. The former world champion’s Petroff was met with the energetic 9.h3 and 10.g4, and much later, her only defense was to trade queens and go into a two-pawns-down rook endgame. Missing that with 34.Qf6? only allowed Yip to show the superiority of her queen, centralized on e4.
In round three, Lee has the white pieces against Assaubayeva. Her co-leader, Tan, has the black pieces against Muzychuk. The leaders are set to play in round five—but who knows what will happen between now and then.
Round 3 Pairings:
The 2026 Sinquefield Cup is the fifth and final leg of the 2026 Grand Chess Tour. Ten players competed in a classical round-robin tournament with a $475,000 prize fund and counts for qualification into the Grand Chess Tour Finals. It runs alongside the 2026 Cairns Cup, which is also a 10-player round-robin featuring some of the strongest women in the world, with a prize fund of $250,000.
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