Praggnanandhaa drew both group games with Vincent Keymer and Vaishali took one point off Vachier-Lagrave as the $650,000 Total Chess pilot began in Budapest.
Two games, two draws, two points.
That was R Praggnanandhaa’s Wednesday in Budapest, where the Total Chess World Championship Tour is running its pilot event for a $650,000 prize fund. The format rewards a win with 3 points and a draw with 1, and each group-stage round is a two-game match against one opponent at 45 minutes plus 30 seconds a move. Keymer and Praggnanandhaa could not separate themselves, and both sit on 2 points in Group B. Fabiano Caruana and Liem Le lead the group on 4 after one win and one draw each.
His sister R Vaishali had a harder start in Group D. Facing Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, the second-best player in Tuesday’s blitz, she drew one game and lost the other, and is last in the group on 1 point. Vachier-Lagrave leads on 4. Arjun Erigaisi drew both of his games against Hans Niemann.
Vaishali beat Niemann and So in the blitz
The opening night told a different story. In the nine-round Blitz Swiss on 10 November, which seeds the players and breaks ties later, Vaishali beat Niemann in the first round and Wesley So in the third, results FIDE described as two of the night’s standout games. She finished 17th on 4 points. Praggnanandhaa, whom FIDE calls the reigning Norway Chess champion, beat Andrew Hong in the last round to finish 14th on 4.5. Magnus Carlsen won unbeaten with 7.
Vaishali and Bibisara Assaubayeva are the only two women among the 24 players.
Back home, our reporters spoke to Ramesh Vishwanathan, a teenager at the Chennai Chess Club who has played since he was six. He said he was very excited to hear the news, and that it inspires many others like him to focus on the game in India.
The stakes in the group stage are blunt. Only the four group winners go into the title bracket, Knockout 1, which runs from 17 to 20 November. Second place leads to Knockout 2, third to Knockout 3, and so on down to the places from 21 to 24. FIDE called Group B the deepest on paper, with Caruana, Praggnanandhaa and Keymer all inside the world’s top ten. Each player has eight more group games, two a day, to 15 November.
12 November, 19:30 and 23:00 IST
Group-stage round 2, with games at 15:00 and 18:30 Budapest time.
16 November
Rest day before the knockouts.
Checked against official sources on 12 November 2026.
Sources
- Unbeaten Carlsen wins opening blitz as Total Chess pilot gets underway in Budapest, FIDE, 10 November 2026
- Total Chess Pilot 2026, Budapest: group standings, totalchess.com
- Total Chess Pilot 2026, Budapest: Blitz Swiss ranking, totalchess.com
- Total Chess Pilot 2026, Budapest: schedule, totalchess.com
- Total Chess Pilot 2026, Budapest: tournament page and format, totalchess.com
