The title Tata Steel Chess 2025 Masters was decided in the playoffs with the Grand Master Indian R Praggnanandhaa beating the world champion and compatriot of Gukesh to win the trophy on Sunday at Wijk Aan Zee in the Netherlands. The two stars of Indian chess entered the final round as joint leaders, but failed to win their respective matches, which has trained eliminatory series.
In Blitz’s playoffs, the Gukeh won the first game but lost the next two while Praggnanandhaa won the title of Tata steel chess also known as “Wimbledon” of chess. Earlier, Gukesh had lost against Arjun Erigaisi from India in 31 movements, the first defeat of the 18 -year -old world champion since he won the 2024 world chess championship.
Praggnanandhaa went down to the German Grand Master Vincent Keymer at the 13th round after a difficult battle that lasted almost seven hours.
The Grand Master of Ouzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov finished third at the Tata Steel Chess 2025. He could have joined the playoffs with a victory in the Tour 13, but finally settled for a draw against the Pentala Harikrishna of India and arrived third.
GUKESH vs praggnanandhaa breezers
In the first match, Praggnanandhaa faced the benoni with inverted colors in the first match of the equality and it seemed that he had easily equalized in the middle game. However, Gukesh had other thoughts when he continued to try and won, thanks to a praggnanandhaa error which cost him a full tower.
In a second unmissable match of equality, Praggnanandhaa used the opening of trumosky, and this time, Gukesh could claim a slight advantage with his black pieces.
However, by keeping his position together, Praggnanandhaa patiently waited and capitalized on an unrefreed error of his opponent to first overthrow a pawn, then his technical capacities were enough to see the normal blitz games with a 1-1 score.
It took the match in sudden death, where Praggnanandhaa drew white and once again Gukesh was better with an imaginative game on the queen side which allowed him a pawn.
Sudden death had a two -minute and thirty -second temporal control for white against three for black, but that has not dissuaded that Praggnanandhaa to try to defend a lower end of play.
Just while the position seemed completely drawn and that another match was on the cards, Gukesh lost total control in the battle of the nerves and first lost a pawn and then his last remaining knight.
Praggnanandhaa showed a perfect technique to take the full point and his first victory at the Masters.
Pragg won the equality break and is our new Tata Steel Masters champion !! 🏆🔥 pic.twitter.com/o8ftpcb9fd
– Tata Steel Chess Tournament (@tatasteelchess) February 2, 2025
For Gukesh, it was the second consecutive year when he equaled to the first position and lost the break in equality. During the previous edition last year, Gukesh had lost against Wei Yi Chinese.
Indian GMs fight in the Challengers section
After Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa, the next best performance of an Indian in the Masters section was Hariskrishna while he finished seventh with 6.5 points. Arjun arrived 10th (5.5 points) after winning his last two games while Luke Leon Mendonca finished 13th (5 points).
The Challengers section was won by the Thai of Dai Van Nguyen of the Czech Republic which accumulated 9.5 / 13 points and will be part of the Masters tournament next year. The great master of Azerbaijani Aydin Suleymanli finished on the same number of points but missed the qualification with the break in equality Sonneborn-Berger.
The R Va Vauli de India finished ninth with six points while Divya Deshmukh took 13th place (3.5 points).
Tata Steel Masters Final Round 13 Masters Class: 1st gukesh, d 8.5pts, 2nd praggnanandhaa, r 8.5pts, 3rd abdusattorov, nodirbek 8pts, 4th fedoseev, vladimir 7.5pts, 5th giri, anish 7pts, 6th wei, yi 7pts, 7th Harikrishna, pentala 6.5pts, 8th caruana , Fabianoa, Pentala 6.5pts, 8th Caruana, Fabianoo 6pts, 9th Keymer, Vincent 6pts, 10th Erigaisi, Arjun 5.5pts, 11th van Foreest, Jorden 5.5pts, 12th Sarana, Alexey 5.5pts, 13th Mendonca, Leon Luke 5pts, 14th Warmerdam , Max 4.5pts.
Tata Steel Challengers Round 13 Challengers Class: 1st Nguyen, Thai Dai Van 9.5pts, 2nd Suleymanli, Aydin 9.5pts, 3rd L’Ami, Erwin 8.5pts, 4th Yakubboev, Nodirbek 8pts, 5th Bok, Benjamin 8pts, 6th Gurel, Ediz 7.5pts, 7th Svane, Frederik 7.5pts , 8th Nogerbek, Kazybek 7.5pts, 9th Vaul, Rameshbabu 6pts, 10th lu, Miaoyi 5.5pts, 11th pijpers, Arthur 5.5pts, 12th Oro, Faustino 3.5pts, 13th Divya, Deshmukh 3.5pts, 14th Bulmaga, Irina 1pt.
