Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour: Why Praggnanandhaa will not be playing in Weissenhaus despite winning Tata Steel Chess

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa pulled off arguably the biggest triumph of his career so far after winning the 2025 Tata Steel Masters, beating the likes of reigning world champion D Gukesh as well as Arjun Erigaisi to become only the second Indian to win the prestigious event after the legendary Viswanathan Anand .

Gukesh was a strong favourite for the title after his victory over Ding Liren in the FIDE World Championship showdown in Singapore in December and did put up a superb tight to remain in joint-lead till the very last round, resulting in the title being decided in blitz tie-breaks.

Praggnanandhaa, however, highlighted the depth in India’s golden chess generation by beating Gukesh as well as Arjun, who was among the front-runners but ultimately finished a disappointing 10th, to the title.

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Pragg, as he is popularly known, led the ‘Masters’ standings for the better part of the tournament. And when it came to the tie-breaks, he held his nerve despite being 0-1 down to beat Gukesh in the next two games and take home the trophy as well as the prize money.

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The 19-year-old had a superb run last year, defeating Magnus Carlsen in Norway Chess before helping the Indian ‘Open’ team bulldoze their way to gold along with Gukesh, Arjun as well as Vidit Gujrathi and Pentala Harikrishna at the 45th Chess Olympiad.

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The victory in Wijk aan Zee on Sunday, however, is the biggest of Pragg’s career so far and confirms his place among the elite of the sport.

So why then is he not part of the lineup at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour’s opening event in Weissenhaus, Germany that gets underway on Friday?

Why R Praggnanandhaa will not be in action in Weissenhaus

The opening event of the inaugural Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, which comprises five events in five different cities across four continents this year and will be played in the unique Freestyle Chess, a.k.a. Chess960 format, will feature 10 players, a majority of whom are the who’s who of the chess world.

That includes world No 1 and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, who helped create the Tour as well as the Freestyle Chess Players Club with German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner, and reigning world champion Gukesh. Anand was also among the 10 participants, but withdrew from the tournament amid tensions between Freestyle Chess and world governing body FIDE, of which he’s the deputy president.

The lineup for the Weissenhaus event includes the top three players from the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge in February last year as well as the three highest-ranked players in the April 2024 FIDE Rankings. A slot was also reserved for the World Chess Champion, which Gukesh became after beating Ding, while the organisers handed out a couple of wildcards to Anand and German GM Vincent Keymer, the former being replaced by Javokhir Sindarov after deciding to pull out.

The only way Praggnanandhaa could have qualified for the event was through the Swiss qualifying tournament that was held online last month. And while the world No 7 did make it to the Round of 16, where he defeated compatriot Vidit, his hopes of facing Gukesh, Carlsen and others in Weissenhaus came to an end with a defeat against Sindarov in the quarter-finals of the qualification tournament.

Sindarov would later beat China’s Yu Yangi before losing to Russian-Slovenian Grandmaster Vladimir Fedoseev in the final for the latter to clinch the 10th spot. Anand’s sudden withdrawal, however, would later come as a silver lining for the Uzbekistani GM.