Breaking Update: Here’s a clear explanation of the latest developments related to Breaking News:Tata Steel Chess 2026 Round 10: Bluebaum Joins 2700 Club As Gukesh, Keymer Also Strike– What Just Happened and why it matters right now.
GM Matthias Bluebaum has crossed 2700 and moved to second place in the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Masters after winning a wild 25-move game against GM Anish Giri. GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov still leads by half a point going into the final weekend, while further down the table World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju struck after GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus missed a hidden winning blow. GM Vincent Keymer also bounced back to beat GM Arjun Erigaisi, while GM Aravindh Chithambaram scored his first win, despite finding himself in a losing endgame against GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen.
GM Vasyl Ivanchuk shook things up in the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Challengers by taking down leader GM Andy Woodward, who was caught by GM Marc’Andria Maurizzi (who beat FM Panesar Vedant) and overtaken by GM Aydin Suleymanli (who beat GM Daniil Yuffa). Ivanchuk is a point behind Suleymanli, but plays him in Friday’s round 11.
Round 11 starts on Friday, January 30, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CET / 6:30 p.m. IST.
Masters: Bluebaum Crosses 2700; Gukesh, Keymer, Aravindh Also Grab Wins
Once again there were four decisive games in the Masters, with the rollercoaster continuing for Keymer (eight decisive games) and Gukesh (six decisive games in a row).
Tata Steel Masters: Round 10 Results
Bluebaum moved up to second place after GMs Javokhir Sindarov and Jorden van Foreest made a draw in their head-to-head clash. Five players are within a point of the leader.
Tata Steel Masters: Standings After Round 10
Abdusattorov kept the sole lead going into the final weekend of the Tata Steel Chess Masters with a draw against GM Vladimir Fedoseev that was full of tricky tactics. For instance, Fedoseev managed to weave a mating net in the run-up to the time control.
There was also a draw in the game between two players in second place, Sindarov and Van Foreest, with Sindarov going for a sharp line that only led to early liquidations.
Those results meant that 14-year-old Erdogmus could have caught Abdusattorov in the lead with a win, and, for a brief moment, that was a very real possibility.
Erdogmus 0-1 Gukesh
“Today I wanted to teach him some lessons!” said World Champion Gukesh about facing a player four years younger than him, though he later clarified he was joking.
Gukesh had lost three of his last four games and, initially, the game looked to be going the way of his young opponent, who blitzed out his first moves until 10…c6 appeared on the board.
As you can see, Erdogmus had a big lead on the clock, but that was about to change. The Turkish prodigy spent a huge 50 minutes on 11.c3 and then another 31 minutes on 12.d3, and while the moves were fine, the time usage would eventually prove a liability.
Gukesh felt he took over and was pushing all the way until in a rook endgame a pawn up, he managed to outplay his young opponent: “When I was 14, 15, all these guys were beating me in rook endgames, so I wanted to return the favor!”
There was one big “but,” however, and it came as a cold shower to Gukesh after the game. He thought he’d come up with a beautiful way to trap the white queen, but in fact it allowed an even more beautiful win for Erdogmus. The youngster was down to under six minutes on his clock when he missed the chance.
“Always nice to get some luck back!” said Gukesh, who has suffered three losses but is now back to 50 percent.
The one player who managed to exploit the draws at the top of the table and move up was Bluebaum, who climbed into the three-way tie for second place.
Bluebaum 1-0 Giri
A few days earlier, Bluebaum had been distraught about spoiling a winning position against Van Nguyen, but now he can bask in the glory of having beaten Gukesh and now Giri in consecutive games. The German star commented:
It’s amazing to win two such games in a row against two such strong players. I wouldn’t have even dreamt this, to be honest. I was just trying to be solid in both games actually. But yeah, in both games my opponent just tried to crush me and it backfired.
In both games my opponent just tried to crush me and it backfired.
—Matthias Bluebaum on beating Gukesh and Giri
Our commentary team immediately flagged Giri’s response 1…g6 to 1.d4 as displaying an unambiguous desire to win with the black pieces—and why not, after beating Gukesh and Abdusattorov in the previous two games with Black.
Jan on 1.d4 g6: “Very atypical for Anish, who’s such a classical player, but he’s saying, you know what, Bluebaum, I don’t believe this 2700 just yet & I need a win to enter the race for the top spot!” pic.twitter.com/oAKlolYaZk
— chess24 (@chess24com) January 28, 2026
What followed was a hyper-sharp struggle that could have gone either way, with Bluebaum feeling much more sure of his play before the post-game analysis: “Without engines, I thought I just crushed him in such an amazing game, but now I saw we both completely misevaluated the position!”
Giri missed a chance to go for a spectacular sacrifice and ultimately also “missed a small detail” (Bluebaum) in a forced line, with that small detail dooming him to defeat.
The win wasn’t just big for the Tata Steel Masters but took Bluebaum over 2700 on the live rating list for the first time.
Bluebaum was thrilled, commenting: “It’s incredibly nice! I’ve been hovering around 2670 for many years, basically since 2020.”
It was a good day for German chess, with the German number-one also picking up a win—his first ever classical win over Arjun.
Keymer 1-0 Arjun
Keymer, like Gukesh, won to return to 50 percent, but while Gukesh has lost three games and won three, for Keymer it’s four losses and four wins. The German number-one said of the losses, “They were just really bad games—it’s not like they grinded me down and outplayed me. I donated the point quite easily!”
I donated the point quite easily!
—Vincent Keymer on his losses this year in Wijk aan Zee
In round 10, however, it was Keymer’s opponent who would do the donating.
Apart from one crushing year in the Challengers, Arjun has struggled in Wijk aan Zee, and this year has been no exception. After a round-one win, he’s made six draws and suffered three losses. Keymer commented on their clash: “Today it was far too easy out of the opening. He made some weird choices, had a very bad position, and then OK, basically just suffered.”
Keymer put it down to mixing up different plans.
With three rounds to go, the players on 50 percent and 1.5 points behind Abdusattorov—Keymer, Gukesh, and Fedoseev—are not completely out of the hunt for first place, but there’s no longer any margin for error. “I’m trying to avoid relapsing now!” said Keymer of his up-and-down tournament.
The final game to finish in the Masters was the first win for Aravindh, though for a long time it looked like it would be a first for Van Nguyen.
Aravindh 1-0 Van Nguyen
How was Aravindh feeling after scoring his first-ever win in Wijk aan Zee? “To be honest, not happy at all. I feel really bad for him and it’s very unfortunate—to lose such a position is heartbreaking.”
It was a painful game all round, with Aravindh admitting he’d wanted to take a quick draw and would have achieved that if he hadn’t suddenly decided to make a capture with a pawn instead of his queen.
That condemned him to a difficult, then lost, endgame, but he said he gambled when giving up a piece instead of playing normal moves. The gamble paid off, as Van Nguyen, down to a minute compared to Aravindh’s 50, lost his way and sank to the most brutal of defeats.
In the remaining Masters game, GM Hans Niemann briefly seemed to get winning chances against GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu’s French Defense, but the game soon fizzled out into a 40-move draw.
Challengers: Ivanchuk Puts Cat Among The Pigeons
Ivanchuk’s defeat of leader Woodward was one of five decisive games in round 10 of the Challengers, while GM Velimir Ivic vs. GM Max Warmerdam was a 131-move marathon.
Tata Steel Challengers: Round 10 Results
It’s all change at the top, with Suleymanli taking the lead, Maurizzi catching Woodward in second, and Ivanchuk lurking just another half-point back going into the final three rounds.
Tata Steel Challengers: Standings After Round 10
Ivanchuk’s crucial win over Woodward is our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.
Maurizzi convincingly beat Panesar to catch Woodward, while Suleymanli took the lead after a wild game against Yuffa. The 20-year-old from Azerbaijan commented on the position after 12.g4!: “If I play some normal move, maybe I will lose quickly, so I was in search of some adventure!”
A big adventure followed, with Suleymanli ultimately emerging on top.
On Friday, Suleymanli faces and could be caught by Ivanchuk, while second-placed Woodward and Maurizzi also meet—so a four-player tie at the top is possible going into the final two rounds!
In the Masters, meanwhile, we have Van Foreest vs. Abdusattorov and Arjun vs. Sindarov.
How To Watch
The 88th edition of Tata Steel Chess takes place January 17-February 1, 2026, in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. Both the Masters and Challengers groups are 14-player round-robin tournaments. The time control is 120 minutes for 40 moves followed by 30 minutes to the end of the game, with a 30-second increment only from move 41. No draw offers are allowed before move 40.
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