GM Aravindh Chithambaram leads by a half-point going into the last round of the 2025 Prague Chess Festival Masters. He had a minor chance to extend his lead after GM David Navara made an early mistake, but the players reached a quick draw. GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, after his draw with GM Liem Le, is a half-point behind Aravindh and is one of just two players who can catch him on the last day.
There were two decisive games. GM Anish Giri won against GM Sam Shankland to get back to a 50 percent score. GM Wei Yi won a long endgame against GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen, who defended tenaciously for about six hours, and has an outside chance of reaching tiebreaks if everything goes his way.
The last round begins four hours earlier, on Friday, March 7, starting at 5 a.m. ET / 11:00 CET / 3:30 p.m. IST.
Masters: Giri, Wei Score Comeback Wins
The last draw not yet mentioned was GM Vincent Keymer vs. GM Ediz Gurel. The German grandmaster had some advantage but had to find a difficult only move to keep it alive; instead, we saw queens traded and a draw many moves later.
Masters Round 8 Results
Most likely, the title is contested between Aravindh and Praggnanandhaa in the last round. But if Aravindh loses and Praggnanandhaa draws and if Wei wins again, we can see a three-player blitz playoff.
Masters Standings After Round 8
Aravindh ½-½ Navara
On the surface, the draw looks absolutely without content, but in fact Aravindh missed a critical opportunity. Winning in this round would have given him a great chance of clinching the tournament, though he does save energy and gains more time to prepare for the last day.
Aravindh received an award (a small glass cube) for playing round seven's game of the day.
Navara, in his interview, said, "I realized that equalizing was not as simple as I had believed, but I did not know that it was so critical." After 16...Bf4?! 17.Ne4 Kg7 White would have had great winning chances with 18.g3, virtually without risk. But it seemed Aravindh planned to make a quick draw, and he stuck with the plan at all costs.
Praggnanandhaa ½-½ Le
Although the result was the same, the game between Praggnanandhaa and Le was much more dynamic, in a Catalan with 4.Nc3. We had an interesting pawn structure, where White accepted doubled a-pawns for the open b-file, but it was still equal. Eventually, a pawn down, Praggnanandhaa acquiesced to a threefold repetition, and it was Le who thought for a while before accepting it.
Le decided not to push it further. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague Chess Festival.
Shankland 0-1 Giri
Although Giri converted the advantage with razor-sharp precision, he credited his win to his opponent's play: "Mostly he played very risky." In fact, Giri chalked it up to luck that he got such a big chance. Essentially, in a difficult position, Shankland played an unsound sacrifice and went down in flames quickly. Giri said:
Chess at the top level is only luck. You have to get good, but then once you're good, then you are always tossing the coin. Okay, maybe Carlsen is a bit better so he's just a bit above, but even now Carlsen doesn't want to play because probably he knows he has to join the coin-toss party.
Chess at the top level is only luck.
—Anish Giri
Giri, pulled over by the pawn police? Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague Chess Festival.
The Dutch number-one also mentioned that Shankland has written a Chessable course on the Classical Sicilian, so he was obviously prepared for it in this game. Giri even joked that he might consider writing a better course on it after this win. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the most dynamic Game of the Day.
It doesn't help his chances of winning the tournament, but Giri reaches a 50-percent score and is estimated to lose just three rating points with another round to potentially recover those as well.
Wei 1-0 Van Nguyen
After holding losing positions in the last two rounds, Wei has won his third game. Van Nguyen sacrificed a pawn in the opening, but as Giri had predicted on the broadcast, the defense was going to be difficult even if the position was objectively equal. Black was going to be a pawn down with no way to force a draw.
Wei won a long grind. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague Chess Festival.
The Chinese number-one eventually squeezed out the win after 76 moves in the rook endgame. The fact that both players made mistakes—Wei allowed an objective draw when he played 61.Ke2?—speaks to how complicated it was, even with the reduced material.
Keymer ½-½ Gurel
Keymer came with a new idea on the white side of the Petroff Defense, 12.b3 and 13.Bd2, and indeed got a slight advantage. The most critical moment came after 25...Qb7!, when the only way for White to press was to avoid the queen trade. After thinking for about 13 minutes, Keymer rejected 26.Qh4!, which runs into several tempi moves for Black but is the best, and instead the queen trade meant Gurel had no issues in splitting the point.
A new idea by Keymer, but it wasn't enough to win. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague Chess Festival.
All three contenders will have the black pieces on Friday. Wei will play against Le, Aravindh against the young Gurel, and Praggnanandhaa against a reinvigorated Giri.
Unfortunately for Maurizzi, his two losses against the tournament leaders earlier have locked him out of contention for first. Yakubboev and Bjerre are the only two players who can qualify for next year's Masters.
Standings After Round 8 | Challengers
We'll have an exciting final day as the leaders both have the white pieces. Bjerre, however, will most likely need to win on demand against FM Jachym Nemec.
Pairings For Round 9 | Challengers
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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.
