Praggnanandhaa Leads After 3rd Straight Win; Heartbreak For Arjun
GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu is the sole leader of the 2025 Tata Steel Chess Masters on 3.5/4 after smoothly outplaying GM Leon Luke Mendonca for a third win in a row. GM Pentala Harikrishna scored the day's most beautiful win by sacrificing both knights against GM Max Warmerdam, while GM Vladimir Fedoseev caught GM Arjun Erigaisi in a vicious trap just as the world number-four looked set to win his first ever game in the Masters. The remaining games included World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju needing to dig deep to hold a six-hour, 70-move draw against GM Alexey Sarana.
14-year-old IM Lu Miaoyi, GM Erwin l'Ami, and GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen continue to lead the Tata Steel Chess Challengers after draws in round four, while it was a perfect day for India's female stars. IM Divya Deshmukh took down GM Ediz Gurel, while GM Vaishali Rameshbabu found a sparkling combination to defeat GM Nodirbek Yakubboev.
Round five starts on Wednesday, January 22, at 8 a.m. ET/ 14:00 CET / 6:30 p.m. IST.
- Masters: 3-In-A-Row For Praggnanandhaa As Arjun Curse Continues
- Challengers: Two More Wins For India
Masters: 3-In-A-Row For Praggnanandhaa As Arjun Curse Continues
Tata Steel Chess Masters: Round 4 Results
After four rounds, we finally have a sole leader of the Tata Steel Chess Masters.
Tata Steel Chess Masters: Standings After Round 4
Harikrishna 1-0 Warmerdam
It didn't take long to spot a potential Game of the Day, with Harikrishna correctly sacrificing both his knights against Warmerdam.
There were moments when Warmerdam could have escaped, but in the end Harikrishna went on to score a stylish win, that's been analyzed by GM Rafael Leitao below.
Harikrishna talked afterward about the benefits of being part of Team Gukesh for the world championship match. He summed up: "A very interesting experience for me, also a learning experience to have a different perspective from each of them, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process!"
That second win for Harikrishna moved him to 2.5/4, a point behind the leader, Praggnanandhaa.
Praggnanandhaa 1-0 Mendonca
Praggnanandhaa has won three games so far this year in Wijk aan Zee, while Mendonca has lost three, and their head-to-head clash was aligned with their current fortunes. Mendonca soon found himself in deep trouble on the black side of a Ruy Lopez, and when he reacted to a break in the center with 24...Nh5? (24...Nd5 retained some hopes) his fate was sealed. Praggnanandhaa won a pawn and the compensation, before energetic play picked up the full point.
That took Praggnanandhaa up to world number-eight, above GM Wei Yi.
His 14.2-point climb isn't the biggest move in the top-10, however, since Arjun has plummeted 19.4 points, with three losses in four games. The last was the most bitter yet.
Arjun 0-1 Fedoseev
"I was massively unhappy moments before I won the game!" Fedoseev cheerfully confessed after a game in which he explained he made a random move early on, reasoning, "if he checked 6...Bd6!? I’m completely unlucky, but if not, we are beginning to play immediately on move six."
I was massively unhappy moments before I won the game!
—Vladimir Fedoseev on his game against Arjun Erigaisi
Fedoseev's feelings were understandable, since in the run-up to the key moment of the game he'd come up against a sequence of five only moves in a row by Arjun that had given the Indian star a winning position. Surely, in his 17th game in the Masters, Arjun was finally going to pick up his first win.
Instead, however, 26.Bxf5!? was a miss (26.Nxf5!), while 27.Nxf5?? lost on the spot.
27...Qxf5! was a crunching move, after which there was nothing to do for White. Exchanges on f5 and g3 were followed by the sting in the tail, 29...Ne3!, forking the rooks.
The #TataSteelChess nightmare continues for Arjun Erigaisi, as he loses a 3rd game in 4 after blundering just when he seemed on the verge of his 1st win in 17 attempts! https://t.co/fqPz5vYfWl pic.twitter.com/625Q50hZ4y
— chess24 (@chess24com) January 21, 2025
Fedoseev, who noted beating GM Magnus Carlsen at the 2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad had boosted his confidence, was asked if he'd enjoyed the game:
You can enjoy such games once they are concluded, but during the game if things are going this way it’s super-tense, emotionally tense—it’s impossible to enjoy such games during the process!
It was also tense elsewhere, since while the remaining games were drawn, none of them were quiet or without incident.
For one move (15.c5!) GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov could have got the better of defending champion Wei Yi and kept pace with Praggnanandhaa in the lead.
Instead after 15.Bf4?! Bxc4! it was the Chinese star who had some chances.
GM Fabiano Caruana vs. GM Anish Giri looks quiet on the surface, until you see the time usage, and that Caruana was on the ropes after running into devilish home preparation. Giri explained afterward that he realized his opponent was not going to play the best line.
In the interview with WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni above, Giri gives a blow-by-blow account of his incredible loss to Gukesh in round one. How had he been able to recover?
Sometimes when you have a heartbreaking loss you could, for example, think about the end of the tournament, or maybe your retirement, different things, but I realized that to have these big thoughts after one game and 12 games are left is maybe a bit early!
The remaining two games were gruelling six-hour clashes. GM Vincent Keymer tried to grind down GM Jorden van Foreest in a tricky knight endgame, while Sarana tried to outplay none other than Gukesh in an endgame with a bishop, rook, and two pawns each... and he very nearly succeeded!
A big moment for Gukesh — he's losing if he doesn't find 57...Re5+!#TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/i45q14c0q7
— chess24 (@chess24com) January 21, 2025
Sarana's superior connected passed pawns gave him hope, but Gukesh found almost all the critical moves to remain unbeaten as world champion.
When queens appeared on the board at the end, Sarana's extra bishop was purely symbolic, and a draw was immediately agreed.
Gukesh survives a nerve-wracking endgame in a 70-move clash with Sarana! https://t.co/q0XO3WRbjL#TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/lDhFwL78n7
— chess24 (@chess24com) January 21, 2025
So Praggnanandhaa is setting the pace and has a good chance to reach 4.5/5 before the first rest day, since he's facing the struggling Warmerdam in round five. Arjun's best hope of a first win may be now against Mendonca, who has the same 0.5/4 score, while you can find something to look forward to in all the clashes.
Challengers: Two More Wins For India
After seven white wins in round three, round four was much quieter in the Challengers.
Tata Steel Chess Challengers: Round 4 Results
Draws saw the trio of leaders remained unchanged, as IM Irina Bulmaga picked up her first half-point in a fascinating sharp clash with Lu.
Tata Steel Chess Challengers: Standings After Round 4
In the decisive action, GM Benjamin Bok exploited the ambitious knight sacrifice of 11-year-old IM Faustino Oro to score a commanding win, while the day's other winners were the two Indian stars.
Smile if you beat a 2600 GM today! 😁
— Women's Chess Coverage (@OnTheQueenside) January 21, 2025
📷: Michal Walusza#chess #womeninchess #TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/rKLLmbOWN8
Both wins were impressive, but Vaishali's defeat of third-seed Yakubboev featured a beautiful back-rank checkmate motif. The Uzbek grandmaster was objectively right to pick up the pawn on c6, but 29...Bf6!! is not what you want to see with five minutes left on your clock. Vaishali had only a minute herself, but won in spectacular style!
Wednesday's round five is the last round before the players receive a well-earned rest day. Don't miss it!
How To Watch
The 87th edition of Tata Steel Chess takes place January 18-February 2, 2025, in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. The time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves followed by 50 minutes to finish each game, with a 30-second increment from move one. Both the Masters and Challengers groups are 14-player round-robin tournaments.
Previous coverage:
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
