Van Foreest and Martirosyan rebound to defeat Aronian and Mamedyarov in Total Chess Pilot 2026

Grandmasters Jorden van Foreest and Haik Martirosyan each bounced back from round-one losses to defeat Levon Aronian and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov as the group stage of the Total Chess World Championship Tour Pilot 2026 got underway. In Group A, Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda topped the standings with four points after a win and a draw, while van Foreest’s victory over Aronian moved him ahead of the Armenian veteran. Group B is led by Fabiano Caruana and Liem Le, and Group C sees Ian Nepomniachtchi in front after his win, with Martirosyan’s comeback securing him second place. In Group D, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave missed a perfect score, and Dinara Assaubayeva held her group to two draws.

Magnus Carlsen was held to two hard-fought draws by Anish Giri, leaving both on two points out of six. The group stage, which determines the sole qualifier for the title knockout, consists of five days of double-round, 45-minute “fast classic” games. Day three, featuring rounds three and four, is scheduled for Thursday, November 12, at 9 a.m. ET (15:00 CET, 7:30 p.m. IST).

The pilot event runs from November 10-21 at the Anantara New York Palace Hotel in Budapest, Hungary, and serves as a trial for the inaugural FIDE World Combined Championship planned for 2027. The competition combines blitz, rapid and fast-classical time controls, with armageddon games using a 10-minute (White) versus 7-minute (Black) format and a one-second increment from move 41.