Aravindh Takes Sole Lead; Keymer, Praggnanandhaa Pick Up Wins
GM Aravindh Chithambaram took the sole lead of the 2025 Prague Chess Festival Masters after winning his game in round three against GM Wei Yi. There were two more decisive results: GM Vincent Keymer bounced back from yesterday's loss by beating GM Sam Shankland, who had been in the co-lead, while GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu swiftly punished a serious mistake by GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen to notch up his first win, in a 29-move game.
Round four is on Saturday, March 1, starting at 9 a.m. ET / 3:00 p.m. CET / 7:30 p.m. IST.
Masters: Aravindh Scores 2nd Win; Keymer, Praggnanandhaa Score Too
Masters Round 3 Results
It was the most decisive round yet as Aravindh, Keymer, and Praggnanandhaa won their games. GM Ediz Gurel was winning against GM Liem Le, but the game ended in a draw, while GM Anish Giri vs. GM David Navara was equal the whole way through.
Aravindh leads the event, but Keymer and Praggnanandhaa are close behind.
Masters Standings After Round 3
Aravindh 1-0 Wei
It's a second win in a row for Aravindh. Just like the day before, Aravindh's victory featured successful opening preparation—everything up to 16.Qh4 was home-cooked—and incisive play to follow.
Wei was under a lot of pressure right out of the opening, and it was one of those cases where the commentators said the position looked difficult to hold, but the evaluation bar just kept showing equality. For a long time, Wei found the best moves on his own, like 15...Kf8 and 19...Rhg8!?, but by move 25 he had 10 minutes against his opponent's 30. And that's when things started falling apart.
Aravindh sacrificed two pawns and dominated the position. GM Rafael Leitao takes us through the splendid Game of the Day below.
With this win, Aravindh also gains 11 points and climbs to number-16 in the world by live rating. When asked about this on the broadcast, he said he'd expected to be higher!
Praggnanandhaa 1-0 Van Nguyen
Praggnanandhaa scored his first win in the event and it's already a big improvement over his start last year, where by this point he had one win and two losses.
The opening was a Nimzo-Indian Defense that turned into a Catalan Opening, and was in fact similar to Praggnanandhaa's game against GM Gukesh Dommaraju in the 2024 FIDE Candidates Tournament. Facing a strong white center and approximately 50 minutes down on the clock, Van Nguyen made the decisive mistake 14...f5? ("This is just panic," said Praggnanandhaa), a desperate move that only opened the position for White.
Truth be told, Praggnanandhaa wasn't 100 percent accurate and Van Nguyen had a last chance to defend with 21...Nb7! ("I was hoping he wouldn't do this," said Pragg after the game), but that never transpired. The 29-move game was a convincing effort by Praggnanandhaa.
It's a first, positive turn for the Indian grandmaster, who hasn't been able to land a point until now. "I was not happy with my first game [against Navara]," he said, "I definitely missed some chances. I got a good position out of the opening which I didn't really put pressure," while his draw in game two "was nothing."
With his first win, he is a half-point away from the lead.
Shankland 0-1 Keymer
Keymer is the only player with three decisive results in three rounds. He won the first, lost the second, and now has won again. What a rollercoaster.
He attributed this win to Shankland's ambition more than anything special in his own play. Shankland played ambitiously with 18.h4 and 19.g4, but by the time Keymer broke in the center with 20...d5! it may have been time to pull the breaks and ensure a draw. Keymer said, "It was just him being overambitious around move 30. Otherwise, he wouldn't lose that game."
Ultimately, Keymer outplayed his more experienced opponent in the rook endgame.
Talking about his loss the previous day, Keymer said on the broadcast that it had more to do with an opening disaster than any poor form: "Yesterday was a horrible game for me from start to finish, but I think mainly the problem was that my opening play led to very difficult positions and it went pretty quickly downhill from there." He's still feeling in good shape, as long as he gets playable positions out of the opening.
And speaking of opening positions, he also said that Weissenhaus gave him some confidence, assuring him that he can essentially outplay anyone. "I took something from Weissenhaus... the knowledge that if we are out of theory and if we just get a playable position I don't need to hide."
... if we are out of theory and if we just get a playable position I don't need to hide.
—Vincent Keymer
Le ½-½ Gurel
Gurel missed a big opportunity against Le. They had a Petroff Defense where the Vietnamese-American GM managed to play a new move as early as move seven. That being said, Gurel was up to the task of defending against it.
Le went wrong, however, with 18.Bg3? and the Turkish prodigy played several best moves in a row to show why Black's attack was faster. There were two critical moments, though, where he had to find a decisive ...c2! push, but after he missed both of them the game ended in a draw.
Gurel is on 1/3, after a loss in the first round followed by two draws. Le has three draws himself.
Giri ½-½ Navara
Giri thought what he'd prepared against Navara in the Berlin Defense would be a surprise, but surprisingly it wasn't—kind of by chance. After the game, Navara actually told Giri that he'd prepared this five days ago, but for another opponent. Tough luck!
We saw several top engine moves in the opening, and it was clear Navara knew what he was doing when he played 11...Qc8 in under a minute. When he played a new move, 12...h6, Giri tried to find the refutation but couldn't. That's because it's a completely fine move that hasn't been played before.
This was probably the cleanest draw, with neither player in any danger whatsoever. Giri pulled the breaks when he realized he had nothing.
Aravindh has the white pieces against Shankland next. We will see what kind of mood the American is in. Will he go for a fight with Black, with the King's Indian Defense again, or will he be solid and stop the bleeding after his loss?
The other exciting matchup will be the two youngsters a half-point behind the leader: Keymer and Praggnanandhaa have a direct encounter in round four.
Pairings For Round 4 | Masters
Challengers: Yakubboev, Bjerre Stay In lead
Like in the Masters, there were three decisive results in the Challengers. Top-seed GM Jonas Bjerre won a quick, 25-move miniature against IM Richard Stalmach, GM Nodirbek Yakubboev outplayed IM Divya Deshmukh in a Queen's Gambit Declined, and FM Jachym Nemec took down former co-leader GM Ivan Salgado Lopez with the most devastating attack of the day.
Round 3 Results | Challengers
This means that there are just two leaders on 2.5 points, and Nemec is a half-point behind.
Standings After Round 3 | Challengers
The most gruesome position (that is, for the white pieces) was in that game Nemec won. Black could just pass his turn and he'd still be winning, but instead he went for the most cutthroat finish, 28...Nf3!. The mating attack pretty much played itself.
The two leaders face off in the next round, while Nemec will look to land another blow on the potentially vulnerable Stalmach.
Pairings For Round 4 | Challengers
How to review?
You can check out the games on our dedicated events page.
The 2025 Prague Chess Festival takes place on February 26-March 7 at the Don Giovanni Hotel in Prague, Czech Republic. The format is a round-robin with 10 players. The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting on move one.
Previous coverage:
