2/4/2025 – Indian FM Vedant Panesar scored an unbeaten 6/9 to win the Tata Steel Chess Qualifiers 2025. This triumph earned him a place in the Challengers section of the 2026 edition. He finished a half point ahead of the field. FM Leandro Slagboom and FM Tim Grutter, both from the Netherlands, scored 5½/9 each. They secured second and third place respectively. The top three prizes were New in Chess book vouchers worth €90, €60 and €40 each respectively. More than the prize fund, advancing to the Challengers is a big deal for the champion. Photo: Lennart Ootes / Tata Steel Chess
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Vedant secures spot in Challengers 2026
Vedant Panesar has fulfilled all the criteria to receive the IM title. However, he did not want to claim it. He directly wants to get the GM title once he earns it. In the post-tournament interview, he mentioned that he probably earned his 14th IM norm here.
It was not only his first tournament in 2025 but also his first time in Wijk aan Zee and the Netherlands. He definitely had a great debut and would like to get back next year as a GM in the Challengers section.
Doesn’t every chess game get decided by mistakes? Absolutely. But most players never truly comprehend that they are making the same kind of mistakes over and over again.
The Qualifiers' champion entered the tournament as the second seed, only behind Dutch IM Nico Zwirs. Vedant scores three wins and six draws for a 6/9 score, leaving Dutch FMs Leandro Slagboom and Tim Grutter tied for second place with 5½ points each. Slagboom entered the final round sharing the lead with Vedant, but lost his game with the black pieces against his compatriot Kobe Smeets.
Interview with Vedant Panesar | Video: Tata Steel Chess Tournament
Tudor v. Vedant (round 7)
Vedant's favourite game of the tournament was his round-7 encounter against 2375-rated Romanian FM Henry Edward Tudor. Vedant mentioned in the post-tournament interview that he set up a stalemate trick 15 moves before it actually happened.
White is winning in the above position. However, he needed to be careful - 50.g4?? allowed White to fall into the stalemate combination 50...Rf1+ 51.Kg2 R5f2+ 52.Kg3 Rf3+!
The rooks are a liability for Black, as getting rid of them earns him a half point.
53.Rxf3 Rxf3+ 54.Kh4 Rh3+ (diagram) 55.Kxh3 and it's a draw due to stalemate.
No wonder it is Vedant's favourite, despite him being lost for the majority of the game.
From Mating with a queen; a rook; two bishops; a knight and a bishop; to the basics of pawn endgames – here you will gain the necessary know-how to turn your endgame advantages into victories!
Shahid AhmedShahid Ahmed is the senior coordinator and editor of ChessBase India. He enjoys covering chess tournaments and also likes to play in chess events from time to time.
From the 2026 Candidates Tournament, featuring a video review by Dorian Rogozenco, to Jan Werle’s opening video on the French Tarrasch Defence, and Oliver Reeh’s tactical column ‘Top Grandmasters at Work’. Analyses by Giri, So, Wei Yi and many others.
You will learn how Black's dynamic piece activity and structural counterplay more than compensate for White's extra tempo in the colour-reversed setups.
In this course, you’ll learn how to take the initiative against the London and prevent White from comfortably playing their usual system by playing 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 Nh5.
London System Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains in all 11 285 games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 282 are annotated.
The London System Powerbook 2026 is based on more than 410 000 games or game fragments from different opening moves and ECO codes; what they all have in common is that White plays d4 and Bf4 but does not play c4.
In this course, Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz presents the London System, a structured and ambitious approach based on the immediate Bf4, leading to rich and dynamic positions.
Opening videos: Open Spanish (Sipke Ernst) and Classical Sicilian (Nico Zwirs). Endgame Special by Igor Stohl: ‘Short or long side’ – where should the defending king be placed in rook endgames? ‘Lucky bag’ with 35 master analyses.
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