Tata Steel Chess 2025 R13: Praggnanandhaa Wins Electrifying Tiebreaks vs. Gukesh

Tournament Information

The Tata Steel Chess tournament is one of the longest-running chess tournaments in history. It has attracted the world's top players for decades and is currently celebrating its 87th edition. The Masters section pits 14 players in a big single-player round robin, setting the stage for exhilarating chess battles as the clash of styles and ratings makes for quite the spectacle. The Challengers section is similarly structured, and Tata Steel Chess also includes a well-attended Amateurs section.

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Leaderboard

Photo credit: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess

GM Gukesh D vs. GM Arjun Erigaisi 0-1

Photo credit: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess

GM Arjun Erigaisi not only ended his rocky tournament on a high note by defeating both GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov and world champion GM Gukesh D in back-to-back games, but he also greatly added to the intrigue of the event as the loss he inflicted on Gukesh made tiebreaks that much more likely. The game that these two ambitious youngsters played was also nothing short of extraordinary as the typically staid Petrov Defense led to a wild opposite-side castling position. At first, Gukesh had the upper hand and seemed to be attacking faster, but just one imprecise calculation, which allowed Black’s queen to enter into the counterattack, saw Gukesh’s position collapse further as he had to find very deep engine moves to stay afloat. As Gukesh failed to do so, Arjun converted with exceptional ease.

GM Vincent Keymer vs. GM Praggnanandhaa R 1-0

Photo credit: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess

GM Vincent Keymer’s win against GM Praggnanandhaa R had all the makings of an award-winning movie script. First, it looked as if Keymer had not achieved much against Praggnanandhaa’s Caro-Kann Defense. Keymer still retained some advantage, but it was not clear how he could increase his edge. Praggnanandhaa was defending precisely until he allowed White’s light-squared bishop to become that much more powerful as it stormed Black’s kingside. With White’s h-pawn so far advanced and the knight making use of the weakened g6-square, as well as the White king marching forward, it looked as if Keymer was playing a model AlphaZero-esque game. Keymer began to err slightly on moves 68 and 69, though, culminating in the unfortunate 70. e5?? blunder. Nevertheless, the game was still not over as White’s h-pawn could always become a hero. Having to find only-moves in time pressure and with the stakes so high proved impossible for Praggnanandhaa, and as Keymer also found precise winning moves in time trouble, it was time for Keymer to breathe a sigh of victorious relief and for Praggnanandhaa to head to the tiebreaks against Gukesh.

Tiebreaks

Photo credit: Lennart Ootes / Tata Steel Chess

Game 1 of the two-game blitz tiebreaks started off with Gukesh choosing the safe and solid Réti Opening system, a choice he would later regret as Praggnanandhaa's space advantage allowed him easy play. Facing positional pressure, Gukesh blundered a pawn, but the blunder looked more like a sacrifice as he had counterplay on Praggnanandhaa's queenside. In time trouble, Praggnanandhaa blundered a tactic Gukesh had set up earlier in the game, which caused him to lose the first tiebreak game.

Photo credit: Lennart Ootes / Tata Steel Chess

Praggnanandhaa bounced back in game 2 with the Torre Attack, where he put his pieces on optimal squares and found an opportune time to break through in the center. Gukesh's 24...Kh8 gave Praggnanandhaa free play, which he made great use of as he used his pieces to dominate Black's position.

With the score equal, it was time to move on to the sudden death blitz games: any player who wins would win the tournament. If a game is drawn, another game is played until a winner emerges. The first sudden death blitz game looked to be a quiet draw as pieces were vacuumed off in the London System. However, after Praggnanandhaa defended passively with 21. Rc2 instead of actively with 21. a4!, he was in some trouble as Gukesh went on to win a pawn after further inaccurate play by Praggnanandhaa. Gukesh then missed a prime opportunity to head into a pawn-up knight endgame with 30...Bd6!!, which, while not necessarily objectively winning, would have definitely been extremely difficult for Praggnanandhaa to defend — that is, if there even was a defense as the position was likely objectively winning anyway. From that point onward, the game again seemed to be headed toward a draw, but Gukesh played on for too long and even lost a pawn and, with it, the game.

GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov vs. GM Pentala Harikrishna 1/2-1/2

Photo credit: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess

GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov’s 1. e4 e5 Konstantinopolsky, a g3 system not too dissimilar from the popular Glek System, was a sign that he wanted to play for the win to try to catch the leaders should they lose — and lose, they did. On move 12, had Abdusattorov found 12. Be3, he would have retained some semblance of an advantage. After playing 12. Qe2, though, GM Pentala Harikrishna made use of Abdusattorov’s awkwardly-placed queen and was in fact playing for an edge at some point. As more and more pieces were traded, however, there was not much left to play for and a draw was agreed on move 50 in an equal queen endgame.

GM Vladimir Fedoseev vs. GM Wei Yi 1/2-1/2

Photo credit: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess

The unstoppable force vs. immovable object trope could not be a more accurate descriptor of the game between GM Vladimir Fedoseev and GM Wei Yi, which saw Fedoseev press a small but constant opening advantage from the Catalan Opening as Wei defended against each blow with precision. With a king march in the endgame, Fedoseev kept trying with great will to win the game, but Wei was never in trouble as he always had a perpetual to fall back on.

GM Anish Giri vs. GM Jorden van Foreest 1/2-1/2

Photo credit: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess

Apart from a few minor scares here and there, and one particular first round blunder against the world champion, GM Anish Giri has been superbly accurate throughout the tournament and was never in any significant danger of losing — that is, until he met his compatriot today, who played the Berlin endgame with stunning precision and brilliance. Unfortunately for GM Jorden van Foreest, though, Giri offered a tough choice on move 29, when van Foreest went for 29...Rxb3 instead of the more accurate 29...axb3!!. Following that decision, Giri found one excellent move after another, calculating with rigor to achieve an equal, but still rather dangerous-looking, endgame, which Giri successfully drew.

GM Fabiano Caruana vs. GM Max Warmerdam 0-1

Photo credit: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess

GM Fabiano Caruana’s tournament was one to forget as he lost twenty rating points and missed several chances in his games. For GM Max Warmerdam, while his tournament was not spectacular, he could be proud of beating Tata Steel’s two 2800+ players: Caruana and Arjun. Caruana’s Colle System choice was unusual but signaled that he wanted to sidestep opening theory and to outplay Warmerdam in a complicated middlegame. In atypical Caruana fashion, however, he greatly weakened his kingside as he tried to search for an attack, or more so defensive activity, that just was not there. Warmerdam was in control from start to finish and converted without any issues.

GM Alexey Sarana vs. GM Leon Luke Mendonca 1/2-1/2

Photo credit: Lennart Ootes / Tata Steel Chess

Photo credit: Lennart Ootes / Tata Steel Chess

GM Alexey Sarana, who, as we noted previously, is one of the world’s biggest experts on the Nimzo-Indian from the White side, was playing a model game in said opening against GM Leon Luke Mendonca. Alas, chess is a game of one single mistake, and when Sarana went for the wrong knight move, 25. Nf4??, instead of the winning 25. Ng3!, Mendonca found the accurate liquidating pawn push and forced an equal queen endgame to arise on the board.

Tata Steel Challengers

The Challengers' winner, GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen
Photo credit: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess

With just 0.75 points of the Sonneborn–Berger score separating the two joint leaders, GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen, who won in the last round against GM Benjamin Bok, promoted to the 2026 Tata Steel Masters section as GM Aydin Suleymanli also won against IM Irina Bulmaga.