R Praggnanandhaa Stuns World Champion D Gukesh to Win Tata Steel

Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa emerged victorious in the Tata Steel Masters 2025, beating World Champion D Gukesh in a dramatic tiebreak on Sunday, February 2, in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. He is the first Indian since Viswanathan Anand in 2006 to win the title. The two players were tied at the end of 13 classical rounds in the 14-player round-robin event.

Incidentally, both Pragg and Gukesh lost their last classical games on Sunday to finish with 8.5 points each. Gukesh, who remained unbeaten till the last round of the tournament, lost a classical match for the first time as World Champion when he went down to Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi in 31 moves. Pragg lost to Grandmaster Vincent Keymer in a marathon game in Round 13.

Gukesh drew the first blood in the two-game blitz tiebreaker on Sunday by winning the first game with white pieces. He needed a draw in the second blitz tiebreaker to win the crown. But Praggnanandhaa bounced back from behind to win both blitz games and stunned the world champion to claim the major title.

The two stars on the horizon for chess were made to play out a tiebreaker at the end as the last day of the tournament turned dramatic, with both Gukesh and Pragg being on level pegging with the results after losing their games in the final round of the tournament.

Gukesh was the first to drop his game, an exciting victory by his compatriot Arjun Erigaisi, who had been not so good in the whole tournament before that, while Praggnanandhaa was defeated by Vincent Keymer, whose irresistible technique was totally perfect for the final day.

This reminded chess enthusiasts of the 2013 Candidates Tournament, where Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Vladimir Kramnik of Russia were tied for the lead, but both lost their final games. Carlsen won on tiebreaks and defeated Viswanathan Anand for the first time to claim the World Championship.

Thus, Praggnanandhaa still had to enter the tiebreaker against Gukesh, who also scored 8.5 points. Another contender, Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan, was denied a full point by P.Harikrishna, who shared the spoils with him in a hard draw.

In the tiebreaker, players played two games of three minutes each, and there was an increment of two seconds every move. The pair of Gukesh and Pragg entered a Sudden Death as the tie persisted at two rounds of tie-breaks. Even at the final 10 seconds of play, it looked like a drawn game was awaiting, but it was a late miscalculation by the side of Gukesh which meant Praggnanandhaa had a win at hand.

Meanwhile, Vietnam's Thai Dai Van Nguyen won the Tata Steel Challengers 2025 title. GM R Vaishali, Pragg's sister, finished ninth while Divya Deshmukh finished 12th in the 14-player competition.