 "Anish Giri took a subtle dig at Magnus Carlsen after R Praggnanandhaa defeated D Gukesh to win the 2025 Tata Steel Chess Masters title. Images: PTI / Tata Steel Chess")
R Praggnanandhaa defeated Dommaraju Gukesh in an all-Indian finale to clinch the 2025 Tata Steel Chess Masters title on Sunday. It all came down to the wire especially after Gukesh, the world champion, lost the plot towards the end of the tournament.
Gukesh was the sole leader of the Masters category at one stage but a loss to fellow Indian Arjun Erigaisi in round 13 on Sunday put him in trouble. For Arjun, it was a second consecutive win after having beaten Nodirbek Abdusattorov in Round 12. And despite Praggnanandhaa’s loss to Vincent Keymer in the final round, he was still level on points with Gukesh, with both having 8.5 points.
As per the official rules when two players are on the same score, a play-off match of two games will follow, and after the play-off games were also drawn, the two battled it out in sudden death . Praggnanandhaa bettered Gukesh in sudden death to win the title.
‘Co-champions, maybe?,’ asks Anish Giri
Taking a subtle dig at the controversial outcome in the Open section of the 2024 World Blitz Championship, Dutch GM Anish Giri gave a reminder to the organisers that it was almost 12 am in Chennai, the hometown of both Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh. “It’s late in Chennai.. co-champions maybe?," Anish posted on “X”.
World No 1 Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi had controversially decided to share the 2024 FIDE World Blitz Championship title in December after having drawn in the tie-breaker round. A video footage of the duo agreeing to play out draws if the FIDE did not accept Carlsen’s decision to share the title had also gone viral. However, Carlsen backed his stance saying that it was just a “bad joke” and not an attempt to influence FIDE .
On Sunday, Gukesh won the first tie-breaker before Praggnanandhaa bounced back to win the second tie-breaker as well as the sudden death game.