The 2600 Club Got Skipped: How Three Under-Rated Players Just Became Germany's New Chess Champions

Imagine walking into your national championship as the underdog, sitting across from grandmasters who outrate you by 100 points or more — and walking out as champion anyway.

That's exactly what happened at the 2026 German Chess Championship, where the final results turned the usual script upside down. The players everyone expected to fight for the title ended up watching from below the podium instead.

A New Champion, One Draw Away From Glory

The German Championship has been decided: Leonardo Costa is the German champion in the open category with 6/9. Bennet Hagner, in second place, and Luis Engel, in third, follow in the standings with 5½ points each.

The finish was tense right to the last move. Before the final round, Leonardo Costa was still level on points with Luis Engel, with both half a point ahead of Bennet Hagner in third place. Luis Engel lost with white against Alexander Donchenko, while Bennet Hagner drew with black against Tobias Kügel. That meant Costa didn't even need a win of his own — Costa's draw against Dmitrij Kollars was enough for him to win the tournament, and his win with black the previous day against Bennet Hagner meant that a draw on the final day was sufficient.

Costa isn't planning to slow down either. In an interview with the German Chess Federation, Leonardo Costa revealed that he was planning a year of chess — and winning the national title was just the opening move.

Where Were the Big Names?

Here's the part that makes this story fun: Germany's highest-rated players didn't just lose the title — they didn't even make the podium.

The three players with an Elo rating above 2600 — Donchenko, Kollars, and Svane — each scored 5 points and were pushed down to 4th through 6th place. The three younger players, born after 2000, overtook them and finished on the top three places.

In other words, a trio of grandmasters with bigger reputations and bigger rating numbers got outplayed by three players who, on paper, weren't supposed to be there at all.

The Runner-Up Nobody Predicted

If Costa's win was impressive, Bennet Hagner's silver medal was the tournament's true shocker. Bennet Hagner's performance was particularly surprising — he finished with 5½ points, and thanks to his better tiebreak score, he took second place and became runner-up at the first attempt, having qualified for the main event through his placing in last year's German Candidates Tournament.

Even the players commentating live couldn't quite believe it. Grandmaster Matthias Bluebaum said during the livestream that he was not surprised by the results of Leonardo Costa and Luis Engel, but that nobody could have expected Bennet Hagner's performance.

The Women's Title Went Unbeaten

While the open section had its twists, one player made the women's championship look almost simple. Jana Schneider was the only player in the women's championship not to lose a game, scoring five wins and four draws for 7 points from 9 games. Lara Schulze was crowned runner-up with 6½/9, while third place went to Sarah Papp with 6 points.

It came down to a final-round duel for the title. A draw against Dmitrij Kollars was enough for Leonardo Costa to secure first place, while Jana Schneider clinched the title with a victory over Kateryna Dolzhykova. And in a strange twist that day, in all five games of the women's tournament, the players with the white pieces won — a small trivia note that made the final round even stranger to watch.

The Bigger Picture

Championships like this are a reminder that rating numbers only tell part of the story. On paper, three grandmasters walked in as favorites. On the board, three other players simply played better chess when it mattered most — and that's really what a national championship is supposed to test.

Also This Week: A New Senior Champion in the U.S.

Across the Atlantic, another title changed hands. GM Vladimir Akopian defeated top-seeded GM Alexander Onischuk in a blitz tiebreak playoff to win the 2026 U.S. Senior Championship at the Saint Louis Chess Club, earning $26,000 for his efforts.

It was a big weekend for the club overall. For the first time ever, the U.S. Championships for seniors, senior women, juniors, and junior girls were held together at the Saint Louis Chess Club, with a combined prize pool of $285,000. Alongside Akopian, WGM Anjelina Belakovskaia was the runaway winner of the U.S. Women's Senior Championship by a full-point margin, while younger talents also had their moment: GM Andy Woodward retained his U.S. Junior Championship title, overtaking 2023 champion GM Abhimanyu Mishra in the final two rounds, and FM Zoey Tang retained her U.S. Girls Junior Championship title, remaining undefeated throughout the tournament.

From Germany to Missouri, this was a weekend where rating lists didn't matter half as much as who could hold their nerve on the final day.