India’s Grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa shocks world champion D. Gukesh in an all-Indian final at the Tata Steel Masters 2025 chess tournament, which ended on Sunday, February 2, in the Netherlands, Wijk aan Zee. The two players were tied after 13 rounds.
Praggnanandhaa needed only a draw to win the title, but lost to Germany’s Vincent Keymer, while Gukesh went down to Arjun Erigaisi. This set the scenario for a dramatized tiebreaker between them.
The Game Went This Way
In game one, he erred on and lost in the hands of Benoni because he played against opposite colors, but in game two, it was different for him as he used the Trompowsky opening to correct a mistake committed by Gukesh and force the tiebreaker to level scores at 1-1.
The tiebreaker went to sudden death, where the white player had 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and the black player had 3 minutes. It was a thrilling and gripping match in which Gukesh lost control, and Praggnanandhaa showed brilliant technique to win, securing his first Masters title.
After winning, I told Arjun that he could take my title since he had beaten Gukesh in the last round to take it into a tiebreaker,” Praggnanandhaa quipped, “I didn’t know Arjun was going to beat Gukesh. At that time it looked like Gukesh was somewhat in a more comfortable situation. Then I saw the end and realized that I had gone wrong somewhere and it was not going to be easy to get out of this,” Praggnanandhaa said.
