It was R Praggnanandhaa’s second as he reigned supreme to clinch the title on the Tata Chess Masters 2025. It wasn’t a simple marketing campaign for the 19-year-old as he needed to depend on all his expertise to meet up with D Gukesh within the standings. At one level, the reigning world champion was the only real chief in Wijk aan Zee.
Magnus Carlsen was reminded of his Blitz Championship ultimate controversy.
However then Gukesh went via a poor patch of kind in direction of the top, dropping to Arjun Erigaisi in Spherical 13 on Sunday. Earlier than the match, Erigaisi was the India No. 1, however Gukesh’s efficiency noticed him topple his countryman from that place and change into the nation’s top-most ranked participant. However Erigaisi had the final snort, as he took on the position of chaos maker. First he beat title contender Nodirbek Abdusattorov in Spherical 12, after which adopted it up with a one-sided win over Gukesh.
Then again, Praggnanandhaa misplaced to Vincent Keymer, who assisted Gukesh in Singapore final 12 months. However he was degree with Gukesh on the standings, which meant that they must battle it out in a tie-breaker spherical to determine the title winner.
‘Late in Chennai.. co-champions maybe?’: Anish Giri
Reacting to the event, Dutch GM Anish Giri determined to take an oblique dig at Magnus Carlsen’s World Blitz Championship controversy with Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi. Taking to X, he reminded the organisers that it was near midnight in Chennai, the place each Indian grandmasters are from.
He quipped, “It’s late in Chennai.. co-champions maybe?”
In the course of the Blitz C’ship, Carlsen and his opponent controversially shared the title after drawing within the tie-breaker spherical. The pair had been additionally caught on digicam agreeing to play out attracts once more if the FIDE didn’t conform to the Norwegian’s demand of sharing the title. Later, Carlsen broke his silence on the incident on X, and said that his feedback had been a joke, when thought of in regard to FIDE’s poor tie-breaker guidelines.
Apparently on the Tata Masters, if there are two gamers within the tiebreaker spherical, a play-off match of two video games is performed. A drawing of heaps is used to determine which participant will begin with which color. If the play-off match ends in a tie, a sudden loss of life sport will probably be performed to determine the winner, and that’s what occurred between Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa.
The tie-breaker spherical in Wijk aan Zee started with a win for Gukesh. However then Praggnanandhaa fought again with ease to seize back-to-to wins.