Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia Day 4: Firouzja Scores 8/9 To Storm Into 3-Point Lead

French GM Alireza Firouzja heads into the final day of the 2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia with a three-point lead over GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave after scoring a stunning 8/9 on the first day of blitz. GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu began the day as co-leader and took the sole lead with a first-round win, but a run of four losses in a row saw him fall back and end the day 4.5 points off the pace.

Day five, with the final nine rounds of blitz, starts Sunday, July 5, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.

Firouzja now needs only a decent final day of blitz to wrap up victory in Zagreb, since he leads his closest rivals, Abdusattorov and Vachier-Lagrave, by three full points.

Overall Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia Standings After Day 4

Blitz Standings After 1st Day Of Blitz

GM Magnus Carlsen once scored a perfect 9/9 on day four in Croatia, and Firouzja wasn’t far from matching that score. He conceded just two draws, one against GM Anish Giri (seven draws, one win, and one loss), and the other in the very first round of the day, against his countryman Vachier-Lagrave.

Firouzja went for a pawn-up rook endgame that he failed to convert, but he could have won a piece instead!

That miss was a fourth game without a win for Firouzja, while Praggnanandhaa won a fourth game in a row in style, against GM Vincent Keymer, to take the sole lead.

From there, however, fortunes swung dramatically. 

Firouzja won his next two games, while, after a draw, Praggnanandhaa began a four-game losing streak by losing a pawn-up endgame against GM Jorden van Foreest. A loss on time vs. GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac was then followed by the crucial encounter with Firouzja, who won in sparkling style to open up a 2.5-point lead over Praggnanandhaa.

A painful one-move blunder against GM Gukesh Dommaraju in the next game completed Praggnanandhaa’s fall from grace, while everything Firouzja touched turned to gold. He explained his strategy: “Some games I took extreme risk, like against Deac, it was 100 percent risk, I went all-in. That’s why there were a lot of ups and downs, but I’m happy with the result.”

Against Deac, it was 100 percent risk, I went all-in.

—Alireza Firouzja

Firouzja rejected an early draw by repetition and ended up completely busted against Deac, objectively speaking, but he hung in the game, survived, took over, and finally delivered checkmate.

Deac was very impressive in blitz, scoring 50 percent, but he could have done much better, since he was completely winning against Abdusattorov as well as Firouzja, before losing both games.

While Praggnanandhaa’s challenge faded, pressure was applied to Firouzja by two established blitz stars, Abdusattorov and Vachier-Lagrave, who both scored a creditable 6/9. The Frenchman commented, “I played decently well—there’s just one guy who’s absolutely unstoppable!”

I played decently well—there’s just one guy who’s absolutely unstoppable!

—Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 

Vachier-Lagrave has, in fact, lost just one game in Zagreb, and that was a blitz clash where he was better a couple of moves before blundering against his key rival, Abdusattorov. 

“I’m just trying to have fun and I think I got what I wanted today,” said the Uzbek star, whose one loss before the final round of the day was against the struggling Praggnanandhaa. The game ended dramatically when 22.Rxc2? lost on the spot to a blow on f2, with Abdusattorov lamenting: “When I went for this line, I just thought I had enough pieces, but I didn’t realize that he has three pieces attacking my f2-pawn—it was so bad.”

The key game of the day, and perhaps the tournament, came in the last round of the day. Abdusattorov had the white pieces against Firouzja and could close the gap to a single point. “The last game was by far the most crazy game,” he said, and although he added, “I was not upset to lose that kind of game,” the loss did put Firouzja very close to winning the title. 

That’s our Game of the Day, which GM Dejan Bojkov annotates below.

A three-point lead is huge for a blitz player of Firouzja’s level, but it could also disappear fast. Abdusattorov was looking on the positive side as he commented, “With a little bit of help and a little bit of luck, I can fight for first place tomorrow!”  

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.