GM Fabiano Caruana won the 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals to earn $150,000, with the runner-up GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave taking the second $100,000 prize. Vachier-Lagrave won the first game, but Caruana went on a rampage to win three games in a row and take the lead. MVL was on the verge of winning the last game and going to playoffs, when a meltdown under the pressure let Caruana take it all.
GM Levon Aronian, who finished in third and earned $60,000, had an even more dominant performance against GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. He won three games in a row, clinching the match with three to spare. The top three finishers all earn entry to the 2026 Grand Chess Tour, while Praggnanandhaa takes $40,000.
Up next from the Saint Louis Chess Club are three events in October. Clutch Chess: Kasparov vs. Anand takes place on October 6 to 11, followed by the U.S. Championships from October 11 to October 25, and finally Clutch Chess: Carlsen, Nakamura, Caruana, & Gukesh on October 25-30.
Day 6 Results
It’s the second time Caruana’s won the event, putting his name back into an already illustrious list of past champions.
| # | Year | Winner |
| 1 | 2015 | Magnus Carlsen (Norway) |
| 2 | 2016 | Wesley So (United States) |
| 3 | 2017 | Magnus Carlsen (Norway) |
| 4 | 2018 | Hikaru Nakamura (United States) |
| 5 | 2019 | Ding Liren (China) |
| 6 | 2021 | Wesley So (United States) |
| 7 | 2022 | Alireza Firouzja (France) |
| 8 | 2023 | Fabiano Caruana (United States) |
| 9 | 2024 | Alireza Firouzja (France) |
| 10 | 2025 | Fabiano Caruana (United States) |
Vachier-Lagrave 13-15 Caruana: One Of The Greatest Comebacks
Vachier-Lagrave took an early lead in game one, and no one could have predicted the comeback that would follow. Caruana explained how he overcame the odds:
If you look at it as having to win two out of four games in blitz against Maxime to tie the match, it doesn’t sound too good. But if you think about it as having to win one game, and then it looks like you just lost one game in blitz, then it’s not too bad.
Vachier-Lagrave was in trouble early when he deviated from established theory with 13.Qd2?! in game one, and he was already clearly worse if Caruana were to play the preparatory 16…Rc8. Instead, Caruana rushed with the thematic 16…f5, but allowed a tactic.
Was all of this provocative preparation by Vachier-Lagrave? Absolutely not, and Vachier-Lagrave confessed he was already hoping there wasn’t a forced win for Black. Given a chance, he said, “it was a matter of both keeping control and finding my chances.” Caruana dropped an exchange and went on to lose the game, with Vachier-Lagrave shutting down any chances of a swindle.
Four points down, Caruana re-entered the Queen’s Gambit Declined with 7…Bg4 that they debated in the classical portion. Vachier-Lagrave neutralized the opening and ultimately defended a pawn down, four vs. three rook endgame with no mistakes. Caruana wouldn’t enter this line of the QGD again in the match.
The Caruana comeback started in blitz as the American grandmaster scored back-to-back wins and tied the score. In the first one, Vachier-Lagrave in fact outplayed him in another Sveshnikov Sicilian, where the Frenchman’s biggest miss was not playing 26.Bg4!. Caruana equalized and then, in a mutual time scramble, instantly took advantage of the blunder 50.Kf1??.
Caruana won again after a one-move slip by Vachier-Lagrave. Caruana lost control later—it happens in blitz—but brought home the two points for a victory in the end.
Caruana then pulled the hat trick from the black side of another Sveshnikov. 19.Qxf5? was a decisive mistake, and Caruana won by rolling his central pawn majority forward. By the end, White found himself in virtual zugzwang with an asphyxiating knight lodged on e2. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day below. (It will be added soon.)
Vachier-Lagrave needed to win the last game with the black pieces to tie the score, and he nearly did just that. As Caruana explained, “The final game of course had its show of drama, mostly due to my poor play in a very simple, easy position, but I hope the fans got a bit of enjoyment watching the action.” Just as Vachier-Lagrave suddenly got a winning position, he wasn’t able to finish it off.
Caruana was understandably proud of the win, saying, “If I could pick one thing to win this year, I think it would be the Grand Chess Tour. It’s so prestigious, so difficult.”
In addition, Caruana shared that he had good memories from Sao Paulo. In the 25th Grand Slam Masters Final in 2012 (a tournament that was discontinued in 2016), he beat GM Magnus Carlsen for the first time (in round one) and led the tournament before they moved to Bilbao, Spain for the second half of the tournament. Ultimately, Carlsen won the tournament in tiebreaks ahead of Caruana, who then played for Italy.
| Player | Rating | Points | |
| 1 | Magnus Carlsen (Norway) | 2843 | 17 |
| 2 | Fabiano Caruana (Italy) | 2773 | 17 |
| 3 | Levon Aronian (Armenia) | 2816 | 11 |
| 4 | Sergey Karjakin (Russia) | 2778 | 10 |
| 5 | Viswanathan Anand (India) | 2780 | 9 |
| 6 | Francisco Vallejo Pons (Spain) | 2697 | 6 |
He added, “Many of the same players, [like] Levon, we played in that tournament, it’s good to still be with the guys who I consider colleagues for so many years, and friends for so many years, and also with Pragg, one of the leaders of the new generation.”
Praggnanandhaa 8-20 Aronian: Aronian Dominates
Aronian won the first three games of the match to win it, not needing the last three blitz games (which were played out anyway, according to regulations). As he explained, an awful blunder in game one by his opponent set the tone for the match. Aronian called the blunder “horrendous,” and said, “I think this of course is the type of blunder that is very difficult to come back from.”
Aronian won the first rapid game with the black pieces, a dream start in the match for third place. Black had just given White an isolated pawn, but the position was still equal. The tragedy had nothing to do with positional chess, though; it was a one-move blunder. Aronian, allowed to play a tactic akin to the Siberian Trap in the Smith-Morra Gambit, said, “I was thinking, did I blunder anything? It was crazy.”
Aronian then essentially sealed the match by gaining another four points in the second rapid game. “I am sort of a guy that is terrible when I’m fighting for a draw,” he said, “so I kept telling myself I shouldn’t be playing for a draw, I should should be playing chess.” The refutation of 15…Re8?? was surprisingly simple; after two moves, Black just had no way to defend the bishop on d5.
Praggnanandhaa needed to win all four blitz games just to reach the playoffs. A single draw won the match for Aronian, but he won the first blitz game, in 27 moves, to clinch third place and secure his spot in the 2025 Grand Chess Tour.
In the three games that remained, Aronian won two and lost one, but the match was already decided.
That’s it for this year’s Grand Chess Tour, but it’s far from the last high-profile event hosted by the Saint Louis Chess Club. Whatever you’re doing, you won’t want to miss GM Garry Kasparov vs. GM Viswanathan Anand, starting on Monday.
The 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals is taking place from September 28 to October 3 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The $350,000 final event of the 2025 Tour sees the top-four, GMs Fabiano Caruana, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Levon Aronian, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, compete in a single-elimination knockout. Each match consists of eight games, two classical (6 points for a win, 3 for a draw, 0 for a loss), two rapid (4/2/0), and four blitz (2/1/0). The winner claims the Grand Chess Tour title and the $150,000 top prize.
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