Praggnanandhaa Wins Norway Chess After Four Straight Classical Wins
Fri, 05 Jun 2026
R Praggnanandhaa won Norway Chess 2026 in Oslo, closing with four consecutive classical victories and defeating Vincent Keymer in the final round.
R Praggnanandhaa won Norway Chess 2026, held in Oslo from May 25 to June 5, finishing with 18 points after a run of four straight classical wins to close out the event, including a final-round victory over Vincent Keymer.Wesley So finished second with 17 points and Alireza Firouzja third with 15½. World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju also played, in what organizers billed as the return of the world champion to the event after skipping the prior edition.Norway Chess's Armageddon-tiebreak format, in which drawn classical games are followed by a same-day rapid tiebreak awarding partial points, again produced a leaderboard shaped as much by tiebreak results as by classical outcomes — a structural feature that has made the event one of the more unpredictable stops on the calendar.In the women's section, Bibisara Assaubayeva won the Norway Chess Women title, adding to a strong year that already included Blitz and Rapid world championships won in Doha the previous December.The result continues a breakout stretch for Praggnanandhaa, who has increasingly been mentioned alongside the sport's very top tier of classical players, and comes weeks after his sister Vaishali qualified for her own world championship match through the Women's Candidates.