Praggnanandhaa Beats Keymer, Leads With Aravindh By 1 Point
There are two leaders after four rounds at the 2025 Prague Chess Festival Masters: Indian GMs Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Aravindh Chithambaram, a point ahead of the field. Praggnanandhaa scored his second consecutive victory, with Black against GM Vincent Keymer, while Aravindh held a draw in a pawn-down endgame against GM Sam Shankland.
There was one more decisive encounter, where in our Game of the Day GM Wei Yi scored his first win in the event against GM David Navara, meeting the latter's flank attack with a classical central breakthrough.
Round five is on Sunday, March 2, starting at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 7:30 p.m. IST.
Masters: Praggnanandhaa Keeps The Fire Burning, Wei Scores 1st Win
Masters Round 4 Results
Besides the two decisive results, the other three games were solid and promised no real chances. Shankland's game may give the illusion of an advantage, since he won a pawn, but he was never once objectively better.
After draws in the first two rounds, Praggnanandhaa has picked up steam with two back-to-back wins. He and Aravindh are a point ahead of the field.
Masters Standings After Round 4
The first two results were draws in the Moscow Variation of the Sicilian Defense.
Aravindh ½-½ Shankland
Of these first two games, Shankland with the black pieces was the one player who had reason to hope for an advantage. After Black equalized with the precise 15...d5!, a forced line led to a position where Black pressed against doubled c-pawns. The truth of the matter though, beyond first impressions, was that the position was still equal even when Black made the most progress possible.
White lost a pawn but ultimately held the theoretically drawn three vs. four pawns rook endgame.
Gurel ½-½ Giri
GM Ediz Gurel vs. GM Anish Giri was the first game to end. Gurel kept control and Giri, despite playing a Sicilian, never got a chance to make a game of it in the Moscow Variation. The pieces were pretty quickly traded. It's a fourth solid draw for Giri and a third draw for Gurel after his loss in round one.
Wei 1-0 Navara
The day's first decisive game was the third to end, and it was a convincing victory by the Chinese number-one. Navara played ambitiously with Black in the Italian Opening, first delaying castling and then expanding with 6...h6 and 10...g5. It's a trendy idea, and it leads to a complex, double-edged fight, but the follow-up of 11...h5? was a step in the wrong direction that left Black overextended.
Wei showed that in this case White has a clear advantage and he punished the premature flank attack in classical fashion. He re-arranged his pieces, prepared and executed the central pawn break, and translated that into an attack against the open king. It's a game for the textbooks, and it's our Game of the Day as well. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes it below.
It's a needed bounce-back from Wei, who is still a point and a half behind the leader. But one more win and we may start talking about him truly catching up. Navara, who had three previous draws, is on the same score of 1.5/4.
Keymer 0-1 Praggnanandhaa
It's a disappointing loss for Keymer, who had a clear advantage out of the opening with the white pieces. He continues to have only decisive games in the event, though now he's at two wins and two losses.
Praggnanandhaa explained the opening surprise: "Vincent played four [classical] games in the last 10 years with 1.e4, and two against me, and both I lost." In the previous two games, Praggnanandhaa played 1...c6 and 1...c5, but this time he opted for the French Winawer Variation, which he hoped his opponent didn't expect. But it was Keymer who landed the first surprise, playing 5.Bd2, a move Praggnanandhaa hadn't looked at recently.
Keymer got a pleasant position out of the opening, but the Indian GM felt things started to turn after 14.h6 gxh6 15.Rxh6 Rg8, even if the engine still thinks White's better. Pragg activated his "bad French bishop," together with the queen on the queenside, and ultimately outplayed his opponent on the light squares.
Keymer had some brilliant defensive opportunities, for example with 28.a5! or 30.a5! and sacrificing a piece, but in practice that was too difficult to find. Even Praggnanandhaa, shown the defensive line, responded, "This is never happening."
It's a nice bounce-back for Praggnanandhaa after losing to Keymer in the last round of Tata Steel Chess 2025. "I didn't think about all that," said Praggnanandhaa. "Vincent is very strong so winning a game against Vincent in any format on any day is good." With that win, Praggnanandhaa is in the lead with his compatriot Aravindh, whom he will face in round five!
Vincent is very strong so winning a game against Vincent in any format on any day is good.
—Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu
Van Nguyen ½-½ Liem Le
It was a solid draw in the Queen's Gambit Declined between GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen and GM Liem Le, even if the opening had plenty of tension and looked promising for a long and complex battle. Le's idea of 16...Ba6, trading off his bishop, and then placing the pawns on light squares, led to an unbreakable defense. Yes, Black had a backward c-pawn, but it was the only weakness in his position and White could not break through.
Round five, right before the rest day, will feature a critical matchup of leaders Praggnanandhaa vs. Aravindh. A decisive game could lead to one player being a runaway train in the last four rounds of the event.
Pairings For Round 5 | Masters
Challengers: Yakubboev, Bjerre Continue To Lead
Just like in the Masters, there are two players in the lead by a full point after they made a draw in their head-to-head encounter in round four. GM Jonas Bjerre in fact did have a winning move against GM Nodirbek Yakubboev (27.Rxf7!), but he had only eight minutes for 14 moves and couldn't find it.
GM Marc'Andria Maurizzi scored his first win in the event, against IM Vaclav Finek, and IM Richard Stalmach bounced back from yesterday's loss by taking down FM Jachym Nemec, who had been just a point behind the leaders.
Round 4 Results | Challengers
This means that the standings remain mostly unchanged, except that after Nemec's loss the two leaders are even further ahead.
Standings After Round 4 | Challengers
Yakubboev will have the white pieces against Nemec, while Bjerre will be defending with Black against GM Ma Qun.
Pairings For Round 5 | Challengers
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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.
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