Tata Steel Chess R11: Pragg beats Caruana, climbs to second place

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
2/1/2025 – The fight for first place remains fierce in both sections of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament with two rounds to go. In the Masters, Gukesh Dommaraju retained the sole lead, but Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu closed the gap by scoring a crucial win over Fabiano Caruana. Meanwhile, in the Challengers, Erwin l'Ami emerged as the new sole leader after defeating Lu Miaoyi, while Thai Dai Van Nguyen suffered a setback against Frederik Svane. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess / Lennart Ootes
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A three-horse race

With two rounds to go, three players remain in the fight for the title at the Tata Steel Masters. Gukesh Dommaraju, the reigning world champion, is still the sole leader, with 8 points to his name, while Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu stand a half point behind. Three players are sharing fourth place a full two points behind the leader and do not have realistic chances of claiming the title.

Round 11 on Friday saw Pragg catching Abdusattorov by scoring a memorable win over Fabiano Caruana. The youngster showed stronger nerves than his more experienced opponent to prevail amid a double-edged middlegame in which both contenders were dealing with pressing time trouble. This was Pragg's second consecutive win, which came after his loss in round 9 against Anish Giri.

Abdusattorov, on his part, could easily be tied for first at this point, as he missed a huge chance to catch Gukesh in his game against Vincent Keymer. The Uzbek GM got a clear advantage, but failed to find a killer blow on move 31, and then mistakenly allowed a queen exchange while still in the driver's seat.

Pragg was not the only winner of the day, though, as Giri, Pentala Harikrishna and Leon Luke Mendonca also collected full points. Mendonca thus obtained his first win of the event, as he defeated Vladimir Fedoseev with the black pieces. The winner of last year's Challengers had three times lost with black in the previous rounds.

Gukesh Dommaraju

Gukesh Dommaraju, the reigning world champion, remains as the sole leader in the Masters | Photo: Tata Steel Chess / Jurriaan Hoefsmit

Caruana 0 - 1 Praggnanandhaa

Keymer ½ - ½ Abdusattorov

Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Vincent Keymer

Nodirbek Abdusattorov tried hard but could not defeat Vincent Keymer | Photo: Tata Steel Chess / Lennart Ootes

Expert commentary

Analysis by GM Daniel King

Analysis by IM Sagar Shah

Round 11 results

Standings

All games

Challengers: L'Ami leapfrogs Nguyen

Five out of seven games ended decisively in the Challengers section, including three games that greatly impacted the top of the standings. Frederik Svane defeated Thai Dai Van Nguyen, who entered the round as the sole leader; Erwin l'Ami, who was Nguyen's closest chaser, beat Lu Miaoyi; and Aydin Suleymanli got the better of Vaishali Rameshbabu. These results left L'Ami in sole first place, followed closely by Nguyen and Suleymanli a half point back.

Curiously, all three games that impacted the top of the standings featured the eventual winner converting his advantage in a superior rook endgame. Not all rook endgames are drawn!

L'Ami, for example, had five pawns to Lu's four in a rook ending.

Svane, on his part, made the most of his outside passer in a position with four versus four pawns against Nguyen.

Friday's round also saw Divya Deshmukh beating Irina Bulmaga and Nodirbek Yakubboev defeating Faustino Oro. In both cases, the winner had the black pieces.

Thai Dai Van Nguyen, Frederik Svane

This was Frederik Svane's second win in a row | Photo: Tata Steel Chess / Lennart Ootes

Erwin l'Ami

Erwin l'Ami | Photo: Tata Steel Chess / Lennart Ootes

Round 11 results

Standings

All games

Links

Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.