2 min readMay 24, 2026 08:07 AM IST
German grandmaster Vincent Keymer clinched the Super Chess Classic Romania 2026 tournament with a final round victory over Jorden van Foreest on Saturday. Keymer’s win was the only decisive game of the final round at Bucharest, but it ended up being a tournament deciding result on a day where five players had a chance to win the title. R Praggnanandhaa, India’s only contender in the tournament, ended joint-fifth, along with four other players.
Praggnanandhaa’s only victory in the nine rounds he played in the tournament came against world championship contender Javokhir Sindarov while the Indian prodigy had lost in the seventh round to Fabiano Caruana. Pragg will now fly to Oslo to compete in the Norway Chess tournament, where he will be pitted against world champion D Gukesh, world no 1 Magnus Carlsen, Keymer, Wesley So and Alireza Firouzja. The Norway Chess tournament starts from Monday.
On Saturday, Praggnanandhaa played out a 31-move draw against Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri. Both players were not in contention to claim the title at the end of the day, so the draw was understandable.
Praggnanandhaa walked away with a prize money of $18,000 (approximately Rs 17 lakh) for his fifth-place finish. This does not include the bonus he will get from his one win over Sindarov. The organisers had announced that there would be $1,25,000 reserved as a bonus pool, which will be divided for the number of decisive games that are played out at the tournament and then distributed to players according to their wins at the event.
Meanwhile, Sindarov, who was in rampaging form in the recently-concluded Candidates tournament, ended joint-third in the Super Chess Classic Romania 2026 tournament after shrugging off the loss to Pragg, which turned out to be the only time the Uzbek prodigy tasted defeat in Bucharest. Sindarov found form late in the tournament, taking down Keymer in round 7 and then Van Foreest in round 8.
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