Dommaraju Gukesh earned his second win of the 2025 Tata Steel Chess Masters in Round 5, closing the gap on joint leaders R Praggnanandhaa and Nodirbek Abdusattorov with a win over Vincent Keymer, who was his second when winning the chess world championship last month. Praggnanandhaa lost the sole lead with a cautious draw against Max Warmerdam, after Abdusattorov grabbed a win over Jordan van Foreest to to draw level with the Indian on 4/5 points.
Arjun Erigaisi's losing run was stemmed with a draw against compatriot Leon Luke Mendonca, while Pentala Harikrishna also opted for an early draw against Chinese GM Wei Yi. The big surprise of Round 5 was Vladimir Fedoseev's shock win over Fabiano Caruana, which drew him level with Gukesh on 3.5 points.
The reigning world champion took over six hours and 72 moves to grind out a win against his world championship second, Vincent Keymer. Gukesh had a pawn advantage after an error in move 22 (f4) by Keymer, but even as the German approached time trouble, Gukesh was unable to finish things off. Keymer held on for the 50-minute increment after move 40, but Gukesh's material advantage meant that he was in a winning position throughout. It took a long while for the Indian to convert and a couple of errors from Keymer allowed Gukesh to finish things off in move 72.
The world champion moved to within half a point of the leaders with the win, thus edging closer to his goal of winning the tournament, saying "For any chess player winning Tata Steel is one dream... A grandmaster has to win Wijk aan Zee before dying!" Gukesh faces joint-leader Abdusattorov in Round 6 following the rest day, which ought to be in intriguing contest given the Uzbek's form.
Playing with black pieces, Abdusattorov played out a highly accurate game against Van Foreest despite being bumped out of his preparation early on with the Dutchman's variation of a Caro-Kann opening with 4.c4. The Uzbek even saw through Van Foreest's knight sacrifice, using a rook sacrifice of his own to gain an advantage and seal the victory in 47 moves with aggressive, accurate play.
That wasn't the case for Praggnanandhaa who played out a quiet, uneventful draw against Warmerdam, who had been struggling throughout the tournament and was only too glad to accept the draw after move 40. Pentala Harikrishna also played it safe against Wei Yi, spurning an opening offered by the Chinese GM and coasted to another uneventful draw. Arjun Erigaisi showed up with every intention to win after a poor start to the tournament, and made aggressive moves at the start of his game against Mendonca, but failed to create an advantage of any sort, thus resulting in an early draw that has both players bottom of the standings going into the rest day.
Round 4 Results at 2025 Tata Steel Chess Masters
Dommaraju Gukesh 1-0 Vincent Keymer
Max Warmerdam 0.5-0.5 R Praggnanandhaa
Leon Luke Mendonca 0.5-0.5 Arjun Erigaisi
Wei Yi 0.5-0.5 Pentala Harikrishna
Vladimir Fedoseev 1-0 Fabiano Caruana
Jordan van Foreest 0-1 Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Anish Giri 0.5-0.5 Alexey Sarana
Standings after Round 4
R Praggnanandhaa: 4
Nodirbek Abdusattorov: 4
Dommaraju Gukesh: 3.5
Vladimir Fedoseev: 3.5
Pentala Harikrishna: 3
Fabiano Caruana: 2.5
Vincent Keymer: 2.5
Wei Yi: 2.5
Alexey Sarana: 2.5
Anish Giri: 2
Jordan van Foreest: 1.5
Max Warmerdam: 1.5
Leon Luke Mendonca: 1
Arjun Erigaisi: 1