Winning his third game in a row, GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu defeated GM Alexey Sarana and now co-leads the 2025 Tata Steel Chess Masters with World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju. Gukesh nearly won and nearly lost against GM Jorden van Foreest in a complicated heavy-piece endgame but ultimately drew, while GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov is almost out of the running after losing to GM Arjun Erigaisi, who has won for the first time ever in the Masters section.
All but one of the games were decisive in the 2025 Tata Steel Chess Challengers, leaving three co-leaders: GMs Thai Dai Van Nguyen, Erwin l’Ami, and Aydin Suleymanli. Van Nguyen defeated last-place IM Irina Bulmaga, l’Ami miraculously escaped a lost endgame against GM Kazybek Nogerbek, and Suleymanli scored his third consecutive win against Friday’s spoiler GM Frederik Svane.
The last round is on Sunday, February 2, at 6 a.m. ET / 12:00 CET / 4:30 p.m. IST (two hours earlier than previous round).
Masters: Praggnanandhaa Surges, Gukesh Misses Chance, Abdusattorov Blunders
Most relevant for the pole position were Praggnanandhaa’s and Arjun’s wins. The third decisive result was GM Vladimir Fedoseev’s against GM Max Warmerdam, which was a welcome bounceback after Fedoseev had lost two games in a row.
Tata Steel Chess Masters: Round 12 Results
It’s essentially a two-horse race between Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa for the title. If both of them lose in the next round, however, Abdusattorov has an outside shot at reaching playoffs.
Tata Steel Chess Masters: Standings After Round 12
Praggnanandhaa 1-0 Sarana
All six of Praggnanandhaa’s wins have come in threes. He won in rounds two-four earlier. And after losing in round nine, he has now bounced back with another hat trick. With the latest win, he has gained 22 rating points and overtaken GM Alireza Firouzja as the world number-seven. He started the tournament as the world number-14.
Praggnanandhaa has jumped over Firouzja as the world number-seven!
Screenshot courtesy of @2700chess 🙏.#TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/CIyexVpb14
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 1, 2025
“I was more or less in a must-win,” said Praggnanandhaa about round 12, adding, “I really wanted to push today, and I think I got what I wanted out of the opening.”
The opening was bizarre, as the Indian GM moved his bishop twice, first to e2 and then immediately to d3. Was it a mouse slip over the board?
Moves 8 and 9 from Pragg 🤯. https://t.co/TJhlEasxjB#TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/RWhm67aUao
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 1, 2025
No. The idea was to prevent Black’s idea of …h6, …g5, and …Nh5 to win the bishop pair.
They reached the mainline position with White down a move, and it did provoke Sarana into playing aggressively with …h6, …g5, and …0-0-0. In a complicated, opposite-sides castling position, Sarana misjudged White’s attacking potential, and 21…Nb5? walked into a brutally efficient barnburner.
Praggnanandhaa said, “At this point, I was actually expecting it to be a long game, and then I realized Nxa6, isn’t it just winning?” The last move of the game was a stunning queen sacrifice.
Sarana was undefeated until round nine, but his first loss opened the floodgates for the two that followed.
Gukesh ½-½ Van Foreest
Van Foreest had played the role of spoiler two years ago when he defeated tournament leader Abdusattorov in the final round. This allowed GM Anish Giri, who was a half-point behind, to win the whole thing.
This game was a rollercoaster and we will know its consequences only after the tournament ends. The most critical stage began after the Dutchman sacrificed the exchange with 34.Rxc4!? (“a cool resource,” Gukesh called it). “I am sure it was losing at some point,” said Gukesh, who believed he was already losing as early as 36…Rh1 (the engine says he’s fine).
Five moves later, though, Van Foreest missed or underestimated the counterexchange sacrifice, 39…Rxe5!!, played with three seconds on the clock.
But there were two big swings left. They followed the winning line until 42…Rb1?, a move that not only threw away the win but gave White a winning advantage, though Van Foreest likely did not realize it. And then the final twist: after 46.Qe6+ Rf7 (46…Qf7 loses too, it turns out), Van Foreest took 30 seconds of his 19 minutes to snap off the e-pawn and head for a draw. It turned out 47.Qg6! would have won.
A miraculous save for Gukesh, who could have either been in the sole lead or trailing Praggnanandhaa in round 13. He observed, “I’m already happy today that I managed to escape this game, but everything is set up for an exciting finish.”
Arjun 1-0 Abdusattorov
Round 12 in Wijk aan Zee seems to be cursed for the Uzbek number-one. He led the tournament last year when, in the same round, he lost to GM Vidit Gujrathi. Unlike last year, he’s extremely unlikely to make it to tiebreaks.
At the same time, Arjun brought an end to his curse. On his 25th attempt, he has finally won his first game in the Masters.
Of all the games, the early middlegame looked like it had the fewest fireworks, but it all took a sudden turn with a one-move blunder. GM David Howell pointed out it was unprovoked: “Arjun hasn’t done much; he’s just been reacting to Nodirbek.” 24…Qg5?? 25.g4! and it was over. White threatened h4 and there was no good response.
Abdusattorov clawed his way back into the game for a brief moment, but Arjun regained the advantage, ultimately finishing the game with an artistic bishop sacrifice. GM Rafael Leitao goes over the full game below.
Despite losing 29 points at this point, Arjun is still the world number-six, and he has officially stopped the bleeding—right in time for his encounter with Gukesh in the last round.
Warmerdam 0-1 Fedoseev
After two consecutive losses, Fedoseev bounced back with a win. It’s three losses in a row for Warmerdam, who scored a career-best victory against Arjun in round seven but has lost six in total.
The players left opening theory as early as move five (Warmerdam’s decision), and a balanced game came to an immediate end with a one-move blunder, Warmerdam’s 30.Qb3??. Fedoseev took about five minutes to play the only winning response, and White resigned three moves later.
GM Wei Yi vs. Giri was the first game to end, as the players rushed from a Petroff main line to a drawn rook endgame and shook hands. The two have won the tournament previously, but it won’t happen this year; they both end the day on 6.5/11. We saw the pieces vacuumed off the board in GM Pentala Harikrishna (ending on 6 points) vs. GM Vincent Keymer (on 5) as well.
GM Leon Mendonca, in second to last place, pressed a slight advantage against GM Fabiano Caruana for a long time in an Italian, but it never grew to anything more than “slight.” Caruana held a pawn-down rook endgame and “stopped the bleeding” after Friday’s loss and left the hall with six points.
The two big matchups to follow will be Gukesh vs. Arjun and Keymer vs. Praggnanandhaa. But don’t forget to keep an eye on Abdusattorov vs. Harikrishna, in case of any miracles!
Round 13 Pairings
Challengers: 3 Co-Leaders Head Into Final Round
Besides two wins by co-leaders Suleymanli and Van Nguyen, there were four more. IM Faustino Oro scored in the battle of prodigies against IM Lu Miaoyi, GM Nodirbek Yakubboev checkmated IM Arthur Pijpers, GM Ediz Gurel won against a floundering GM Vaishali Rameshbabu, and GM Benjamin Bok won after almost seven and a half hours in a long endgame against IM Divya Deshmukh.
Tata Steel Chess Challengers: Round 12 Results
Despite all the action, it’s a three-horse race in the fight for first between Van Nguyen, Suleymanli, and l’Ami. Bok is still, however, in the conversation as he’s a half-point behind.
Tata Steel Chess Challengers: Standings After Round 12
There will be no playoffs if players tie for first. In the past, multiple players have been invited to the Masters section.
Van Nguyen defeated Bulmaga after trading into a winning knight endgame where material was only temporarily even. It’s his sixth win, against a struggling opponent who has now lost 10 games and drawn two.
And the only draw of the round was still full of action, as the sole leader l’Ami was dead lost in a bishop endgame. 43.e5!? was a desperate attempt that worked. Nogerbek, who had 44 minutes, made the wrong capture. 43…fxe5! followed by 44…Bf7! were two “only moves” to win, with the idea of sacrificing the bishop on the queenside. A nice puzzle for the endgame books.
Svane took down Van Nguyen the day before, which was a big help for l’Ami and Suleymanli in catching up. But Suleymanli wasn’t so thankful at the board as he scored his third consecutive victory.
Svane sacrificed a pawn early on and had full compensation, but ultimately the Azerbaijani grandmaster converted the material advantage over 84 moves to a full point. The win was mostly clean, but there was a curious moment when the players had three minutes each and 58.Bd4?? could have lost the game in a shocking manner.
What a cold shower that could have been!
We saw a smothered checkmate (this author’s favorite pattern) on the board in Yakubboev vs. Pijpers.
We saw checkmate played out in Yakubboev vs. Pijpers!https://t.co/1V5yIUJrxs#TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/hcuxfURSrM
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 1, 2025
Vaishali’s solid start to the tournament has ended in a nightmare as she’s lost her third consecutive game in round 12 against Gurel. And the youngest player, Oro, defeated the second-youngest, Lu.
Bok won the endurance award after grinding out a bishop vs. rook endgame. He managed it 10 moves before Divya could call a draw by 50 moves.
Suleymanli will want to strike against an injured Bulmaga, while Bok vs. Nguyen is a perfect opportunity for the Dutchman to beat one of the leaders. Finally, l’Ami will hope to inflict Vaishali’s fourth consecutive loss and win the tournament.
Round 13 Pairings
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.
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