Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa won the Tata Steel Masters 2025:
Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa won the Tata Steel Masters 2025 defeated D Gukesh in the playoffs to win the Tata Steel Chess Masters 2025 title. History was created on Sunday in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.
Praggnanandhaa defeated world champion Gukesh in a tense tiebreak of the Tata Steel chess tournament 2025 in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.
A tiebreaker was needed after both R Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh lost their last-round matches on Sunday. After Gukesh lost to Arjun Erigaisi in 31 moves.
Praggnanandhaa lost to Grandmaster Vincent Keymer in a marathon game in Round 13. As a result, the two joint-leaders were forced to take part in the tiebreakers.
Gukesh made a flying start to the tiebreakers winning the first game, but then lost the next two to Praggnanandhaa. Then Praggnanandhaa continued his winning run and clinched the third game in the playoffs to win the Tata Steel Chess 2025 title.
Praggnanandhaa became the first Indian since Viswanathan Anand in 2006 to to claim the prestigious title.
After his win, Praggnanandhaa said, “When I came here, I wanted to win the event. But the field was very strong. I didn’t really think about it much until yesterday. Can’t really express… I’m really happy.”
Pragg may have suffered a loss in the final game against Vincent Keymer, but thanks to Arjun Erigaisi’s victory over Gukesh in round 13, a tiebreaker was set up. The Indian prodigy joked after claiming the title that he should probably reward his good friend Arjun Erigaisi for defeating Gukesh.
“I was just trying to relax. I have my mother and sister so I was just relaxing and trying to rest. It was a very difficult game against Vincent I don’t think I played anywhere the level I was playing here so I think I should probably buy something for Arjun,”R Praggnanandhaa joked.
Commenting on Arjun’s win, he said “I didn’t really expect (Arjun beating Gukesh). Because at some point felt that Gukesh was actually better. When I saw the result (Gukesh losing to Arjun), I had already misplayed and I was in such a difficult position that I could not really do much than sit and defend. I don’t think practically I had any chance in my own position,” Praggnanandhaa added.
