Praggnanandhaa stuns Gukesh in playoffs after late drama to win Tata Steel Chess 2025

The Tata Steel Chess 2025 Masters title was decided in playoffs with Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa defeating world champion and fellow compatriot D Gukesh to clinch the trophy on Sunday at Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. Both Indian chess stars entered the final round as joint leaders but failed to win their respective matches resulting in a blitz playoffs.

In the blitz playoffs, Gukeh won the first game but lost the next two as Praggnanandhaa won the Tata Steel Chess title also known as the ‘Wimbledon’ of chess. Earlier, Gukesh had lost to India’s Arjun Erigaisi in 31 moves, the 18-year-old world champion’s first defeat since winning the World Chess Championship 2024.

Praggnanandhaa went down to German Grandmaster Vincent Keymer in Round 13 after a hard-fought battle that lasted nearly seven hours.

Uzbek Grandmaster Nodirbek Abdusattorov finished third at the Tata Steel Chess 2025. He could have joined the playoffs with a win in Round 13 but eventually settled for a draw against India’s Pentala Harikrishna and came third.

Gukesh vs Praggnanandhaa tiebreakers

In the first game, Praggnanandhaa faced the Benoni with reversed colours in the first game of the tiebreak and it seemed like he had equalised easily in the middle game. However, Gukesh had other thoughts as he kept trying and won, thanks to a blunder by Praggnanandhaa that cost him a full rook.

In a must-win second game of the tiebreaker, Praggnanandhaa employed the Trompowsky opening, and this time Gukesh could claim a slight advantage with his black pieces.

However, by just keeping his position together, Praggnanandhaa patiently waited and capitalised on an unforced error from his opponent to first knock down a pawn and then his technical abilities were enough to see the normal blitz games through with a 1-1 score.

This took the match into sudden-death, where Praggnanandhaa drew white and once again Gukesh was better with some imaginative play on the queen side that netted him a pawn.

The sudden-death had a time control of two minutes and thirty seconds for white against three for black but that did not deter Praggnanandhaa from trying to defend an inferior endgame.

Just while the position looked completely drawn and another game was on the cards, Gukesh lost complete control in the battle of nerves and first lost a pawn then his last remaining knight.

Praggnanandhaa showed perfect technique to take the full point and his maiden victory at the Masters.

Pragg wins the tiebreak and is our new Tata Steel Masters Champ!! 🏆🔥 pic.twitter.com/o8FtpcB9fD

— Tata Steel Chess Tournament (@tatasteelchess) February 2, 2025

For Gukesh, this was the second year running when he tied for first position and lost the tiebreaker. In the previous edition last year, Gukesh had lost to Chinese Wei Yi.

Indian GMs struggle in Challengers section

After Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa, the next best performance by an Indian in the Masters section was from Hariskrishna as he finished seventh with 6.5 points. Arjun came 10th (5.5 points) after winning his last two matches while Luke Leon Mendonca finished 13th (5 points).

The Challengers section was won by Czech Republic’s Thai Dai Van Nguyen who accumulated 9.5/13 points and will be part of the Masters tournament next year. Azerbaijani Grandmaster Aydin Suleymanli finished on same number of points but missed qualification by the Sonneborn-Berger tiebreak.

India’s R Vaishali finished ninth with six points while Divya Deshmukh took the 13th spot (3.5 points).

Tata Steel Masters Final Round 13 Masters Standings: 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, Fabiano 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 Final Round 13 Challengers Standings: 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 Vaishali, 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.