Wesley So Beats Carlsen, Gukesh Scores 1st Classical Win, Divya Overtakes Assaubayeva

All three classical games could have been decisive in round five of Norway Chess 2026, but we got two Black wins and only one draw. GM Vincent Keymer missed a chance in his classical encounter against tournament leader GM Alireza Firouzja, who won the armageddon game and remains 1.5 points ahead of the pack. For the second time in his career, GM Wesley So beat world number-one GM Magnus Carlsen in their classical encounter and jumped to second place, leaving Carlsen in last. Finally, World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju scored his first classical win in the tournament against GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu to land in third place, two points behind So.

GM Divya Deshmukh has taken over as the leader of Norway Chess Women 2026 after GM Zhu Jiner overpressed in a better position and lost in classical chess. Divya leads GM Bibisara Assaubayeva by half a point after the previous leader lost a wild armageddon clash against GM Anna Muzychuk. Neither GM Koneru Humpy nor GM Ju Wenjun had won a match going into round five, with Humpy the player to change that sequence—the women's world champion has now lost five armageddons in a row!

Round six starts Sunday, May 31, at 11 a.m. ET / 17:00 CEST / 8:30 p.m. IST.

Norway Chess Round 5: Firouzja Still Chilling In 1st As So, Gukesh Pick Up Wins

Norway Chess Women Round 5: Divya Takes Over As Leader

The players returned from the rest day with renewed energy, and half the classical games were decisive. So, Gukesh, and Divya scored three points.

Norway Chess Round 5: Results

As Firouzja continues to lead Norway Chess, Divya has overtaken the leader in the Women at the halfway mark of the tournament.

Norway Chess Round 5: Standings

Norway Chess Round 5: Firouzja Still Chilling In 1st As So, Gukesh Pick Up Wins

Norway Chess traditionally hosts some sort of non-chess game on the rest day. While last year the players participated in a series of Wild West contests in a Western-themed village, this year they went sailing. Gukesh, who celebrated his 20th birthday, was on the winning team.

The Friday outing provided for plenty of content—photos and videos—but not all fans were entertained. GM Anish Giri, from the outside looking in, raised a valid complaint.

The players anchored back at their boards in the library on Saturday. Firouzja, who has remained in pole position since beating Carlsen in the very first round, continues to lead. We may later look back on this round as pivotal, since Keymer came close to landing a win in the classical game—and it could have been 3/3 wins for the black pieces.

But the French number-one proved too slippery and then won the extra half-point in armageddon. For Keymer, it's a fifth armageddon loss in a row.

Firouzja 1.5-1 Keymer

Firouzja 1.5-1 Keymer

The tournament leader may not have been aware of how much trouble he really was in. Keymer got the upper hand out of the opening, which was a Benoni pawn structure with reversed colors. And his initiative could have reached decisive proportions if he had found 20...Rf6!. While it looks strong, GM David Howell on the broadcast said that without the eval bar, it wouldn't be so clear to him that Black is completely winning.

Instead, Keymer first played 20...Be7?! and then defended his pawn with 21...Bc5?, and all the advantage was lost. "Not such a great quality, but not a bad game also," said Firouzja of the game, which was the only classical draw.

The armageddon game was "not bad," in Firouzja's opinion. Keymer held the balance for a long time, but as both players dropped under three minutes, Fire-ouzja (as he was called on the broadcast) found a precise tactical refutation to Keymer's 27...Rb3??. The final point of the combination appeared only five moves later, a fork on the d3-rook.

Carlsen 0-3 So

So, after his classical win against the 16th world champion, is the only player who can theoretically catch up to the tournament leader with another classical win.

So has beaten Carlsen in just two classical games, and the first time was in Norway Chess 2018! The American, who joined the Chess24 broadcast, observed, "Maybe that's his weakness, defending his home court!"

Maybe that's his weakness, defending his home court!

—Wesley So

Carlsen visited the confessional early on and summarized his day so far:

1. Woke up

2. Had breakfast

3. Had a nap

4. Felt really old

On the fourth point, he said he had just looked at the opening before the game but could hardly remember the details. The opening itself may not have been the decisive issue, however, as So said he also couldn't remember his analysis. One thing was clear after 5.Bg5 in the Italian, So said: "I realized this was going to be a long day."

Carlsen got up from that same confessional session and immediately sat back down to suggest they switch out one of the monitors to show the PSG vs. Arsenal match. Though he didn't get the luxury of watching football during his own game, PSG won 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.

Carlsen wouldn't return to the confessional again this round, and instead he'd go on to lose a third classical game. So aggressively gained space on the kingside as he kicked the g5-bishop back, but said, "I had no idea what was going on. I was just hoping I wouldn't lose right away."

In the middlegame, So got optimistic, "When he went to six minutes [on move 30] and he wasn't really better, I knew I had good chances." That's also right when the position started to turn, and "when he retreated his knight to the passive f1-square, I was very happy," So explained after the game. GM Dejan Bojkov analyzes it all in the annotations below.

Even after defeating him, So hailed Carlsen as the GOAT of chess. He said, "It's not a masterpiece, but I'm very pleased to beat Magnus, who's the best player in the world by far and probably goes down as the best chess player who ever lived."

He went on, "I am normally very nervous playing Magnus, but I knew he wasn't in his best form in this tournament. I don't think he's—something just feels a bit off." Carlsen is still the world number-one by over 30 points on the live rating list, but he has dropped 15 in the first half of this event.

So was also asked if he got the birthday boy, Gukesh, a gift, especially as they were on the same winning team in the boat race. "That's a hard question. Sindarov didn't get him a gift either!" he neither admitted nor denied.

Praggnanandhaa 0-3 Gukesh

With his first classical win of the event, Gukesh catapulted himself from last to third place. Another classical win and he'll be theoretically—if Firouzja loses too—a half-point away from tournament lead.

The nail-biting Indian encounter could have, in the true sense of the phrase, gone either way. Both players had winning positions, but as we often hear in chess circles, it is the player who makes the second-to-last mistake that wins the game.

Out of the opening, which was a Ragozin, the commentators were optimistic for Praggnanandhaa's chances, even if the evaluation bar was close to equal. Gukesh, for the first time, entered the confessional booth and didn't look in the least worried about his position.

That was after the move 18...a5. Gukesh said that he had the queenside under control and that, next, his plan was to drop the queen back to g7 and kick the knight with ...f6.

The world champion identified the correct plan, but took a long time to finally play that critical ...f6 move in the game. He delayed it, and by the time the move was finally on the board, Praggnanandhaa had secured other advantages. The knight sacrifice 35.Nxb6!!, in objective terms, was a winning move—though we already know that winning moves don't always win games.

The game spiraled out of control in the run-up to move 40 and also after it, when both players were playing with about a minute and a 10-second increment. Praggnanandhaa's one serious mistake, 43.Kf2??, meant the game was over. Gukesh ended the game with a direct checkmating attack.

Gukesh called it "just a very complex game" and added, "Luckily, the tricks kind of worked out for me!" The tricks also worked out for our new tournament leader in Norway Chess Women.

Norway Chess Women Round 5: Divya Takes Over As Leader

Muzychuk 1.5-1 Assaubayeva

Defending champion Muzychuk had the white pieces and a chance to beat and overtake the leader, but as she admitted in a late confessional, Assaubayeva was able to blitz out almost all her moves in a "difficult" classical game.

Muzychuk was never worse in a super-sharp King's Indian Defense, but Assaubayeva drew with ease. She'd used just seven minutes on her clock when she played a fine exchange sacrifice on move 21.

Both players had lost just a single game in armageddon, so a fierce fight was guaranteed and, indeed, it could have gone either way. There were wild swings right up until the end, when, on move 39, Assaubayeva used up half her remaining eight seconds and grabbed the wrong rook. Suddenly she was dead lost on the board, and also behind on the clock, with the game ending as the tournament leader lost on time.

"All my armageddon games are quite crazy—when they end well, I don’t complain!" said Muzychuk.

All my armageddon games are quite crazy—when they end well, I don't complain!

—Anna Muzychuk

That saw Muzychuk move within a point of Assaubayeva but, more importantly, it allowed Divya to overtake her.

Zhu 0-3 Divya

Divya grabbed only the second classical win of Norway Chess Women 2026, but for most of the encounter, the only player who seemed to have a chance of picking up three points was women's world number-four Zhu. She played what may have been an over-the-board novelty, but it worked perfectly, with the Indian star reacting badly and finding herself almost busted when 14.d5! appeared on the board.

Divya was forced to sink into deep thought, and even if it came as a relief when Zhu then swapped off queens, she still found herself desperately short on time in a position which, at worst, seemed risk-free for White.

What followed was wild, however, with Divya continuing to find good moves on instinct until Zhu was no better and missed the moment when she should have shut the game down for a draw. Divya whipped up fierce counterplay, Zhu also got down to playing on the 10-second increment, and in the end an 84-move win gave Divya the sole lead.

That leaves the clash of the two sleeping giants.

Ju 1-1.5 Humpy

The women's world champion and the world number-six went into Norway Chess Women as potential winners, but before this clash neither had won a match. Humpy lost in classical chess to Assaubayeva and then lost in armageddon after starting with draws in her remaining matches, while Ju had made four draws and lost all four armageddons.

Their head-to-head clash was a chance to change that, but the classical game only suggested how out-of-form both players were. Ju went for simplifications rather than trying to build pressure, and both players got into time trouble, though in a position where they could shuffle pieces for a draw.

That meant that one player would at least pick up a first match win of the event, in armageddon, and that player was Humpy.

Ju, playing a must-win game with the white pieces, missed one great chance to launch an attack with 15.Nxf6+!. When that was missed, Humpy consolidated and safely steered the game toward a draw. She was helped in the end by Ju losing on time in a situation where both players were down to seconds.

Humpy and Ju continue to occupy the last two spots in the standings, but as we've seen, one three-point classical win can change everything. In round six, Ju has Black against leader Divya, while Humpy is Black against second-placed Assaubayeva.

In Norway Chess, the game to watch is certainly Carlsen vs. Firouzja.

Round 6 Pairings

Colin McGourty contributed to this report.

How to watch?

You can watch Norway Chess 2026 on the Chess24 YouTube and Twitch channels. The games can also be followed from our events page: Open | Women.

Norway Chess 2026 features Open and Women's six-player tournaments for equal prize funds of 1,690,000 NOK (~$182k). It runs May 25 to June 5 in Oslo, with players facing their opponents twice at classical chess (120 minutes/40 moves, with a 10-second increment from move 41). The winner of a classical game gets three points, the loser, zero; after a draw, the players get one point and fight for another half-point in armageddon (10 minutes for White, seven for Black, who has draw odds).

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