It was R Praggnanandhaa’s moment as he reigned supreme to clinch the title at the Tata Chess Masters 2025.
It wasn’t an easy campaign for the 19-year-old as he had to rely on all his experience to catch up with D Gukesh in the standings. At one point, the reigning world champion was the sole leader in Wijk aan Zee.
Reacting to the development, Dutch GM Anish Giri decided to take an indirect dig at Magnus Carlsen’s World Blitz Championship controversy with Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi. Taking to X, he reminded the organisers that it was close to midnight in Chennai, where both Indian grandmasters are from.
He quipped, “It’s late in Chennai.. co-champions maybe?”
During the Blitz C’ship, Carlsen and his opponent controversially shared the title after drawing in the tie-breaker round. The pair were also caught on camera agreeing to play out draws again if the FIDE didn’t agree to the Norwegian’s demand of sharing the title. Later, Carlsen broke his silence on the incident on X, and stated that his comments were a joke, when considered in regard to FIDE’s poor tie-breaker rules.
Interestingly at the Tata Masters, if there are two players in the tiebreaker round, a play-off match of two games is played. A drawing of lots is used to decide which player will start with which colour. If the play-off match ends in a tie, a sudden death game will be played to decide the winner, and that’s what happened between Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa.
The tie-breaker round in Wijk aan Zee began with a win for Gukesh. But then Praggnanandhaa fought back with ease to grab back-to-to wins.
