Total Chess Championship Round 2
By Cameron W. · Fri, 13 Nov 2026
n Round 2 of the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot on Thursday, he drew both games against Abhimanyu Mishra, which makes four draws from four Fast Classic games so far.
Magnus Carlsen won Tuesday's opening blitz event unbeaten on 7/9, but the slower games in Budapest are proving far stingier. In Round 2 of the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot on Thursday, he drew both games against Abhimanyu Mishra, which makes four draws from four Fast Classic games so far. Even the blitz run had its scares, since Levon Aronian reached a winning position against him before settling for a repetition draw. Still, Carlsen was far from the only story on a day full of swings.
Group A: Firouzja stays in front
Alireza Firouzja took four points from the day, beating Jorden van Foreest with White and drawing the return, and now leads the group on 8. Jan-Krzysztof Duda is second on 7, and his meeting with Nodirbek Abdusattorov was the longest of the day. The two split their games, with Duda winning an outrageously complicated 92-move battle. Abdusattorov, who had finished a surprising 22nd in the blitz, still climbed to 4 points. Aronian and Andrew Hong drew both of their games.
Standings: Firouzja 8, Duda 7, Aronian 5, Abdusattorov 4, van Foreest 4, Hong 3.
Group B: A perfect day for Caruana
Fabiano Caruana had the best day of anyone. With White he sacrificed a piece to expose R. Praggnanandhaa's king, then won the return game with Black to reach 10 points, two clear of Liem Le. Chess.com put his performance rating at 3077. It was a strong answer to the blitz, where he lost his first game to home favourite Richard Rapport. Le took a win and a draw against Vincent Keymer, while Rapport and Vladislav Artemiev drew both of their games. Praggnanandhaa, the reigning Norway Chess champion, is last in the group on 2.
Standings: Caruana 10, Le 8, Keymer 3, Rapport 3, Artemiev 3, Praggnanandhaa 2.
Group C: Carlsen escapes, Martirosyan bounces back
Carlsen's day against Mishra was closer than the result suggests. Mishra had a winning position in the second game but let it slip in an endgame with bishops of opposite colours. Elsewhere in the group, Anish Giri won the first game against Haik Martirosyan with White in 26 moves, but Martirosyan won the return. That put him level with Ian Nepomniachtchi, who drew both games with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and shares the lead on 6.
Standings: Nepomniachtchi 6, Martirosyan 6, Giri 5, Mamedyarov 5, Carlsen 4, Mishra 3.
Group D: Niemann evens the blitz score
Hans Niemann beat Vaishali Rameshbabu in both games to jump from 2 points to 8. Vaishali, the lowest-rated player in the field, had beaten him in the first round of the blitz, and Chess.com noted that Niemann had a score to settle and is back over 2700 on the live rating list. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave also reached 8 by beating Wesley So with White and drawing the return.
The result of the day came between the other two players on 5 points. Bibisara Assaubayeva won one game against Arjun Erigaisi, with her advanced kingside pawns playing a key role, and Erigaisi won the return with Black. ChessBase described it as her first win against a 2700+ opponent. It came after a rough start, since she lost eight games in the blitz before making her first draw.
Standings: Niemann 8, Vachier-Lagrave 8, So 3, Vaishali 1, with Erigaisi and Assaubayeva on 5 each.
What it means for Carlsen
This is where the group results start to matter. Only the four group winners advance to the knockout stage that decides the tournament title. That stage is scheduled for semifinals on November 17 and 18, and the final and third-place match on November 19 and 20. Carlsen sits fifth in Group C, two points behind the leaders with six games left. He does have one small edge: ties in the groups are broken by Blitz Swiss rank, and he won the blitz.
