GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu blundered with a second on his clock to turn a promising position into a pawn-down endgame, but GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave missed a win as their 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals semifinal began with a draw. The other match-up also started peacefully, as GM Fabiano Caruana failed to follow through on an interesting opening novelty against GM Levon Aronian.
Day two begins on Monday, September 29 at 2 p.m. ET / 20:00 CEST / 11:30 p.m. IST.
Day 1 Results
Grand Chess Tour Celebrates 10th Edition With Grand Finals In Brazil
The Grand Chess Tour, inspired by former World Champion Garry Kasparov, began in 2015 and in 2025 is celebrating its 10th edition. We’ve had six different winners.
| # | Year | Final Event | Winner | FED |
| 1 | 2015 | London, UK | Magnus Carlsen | |
| 2 | 2016 | London, UK | Wesley So | |
| 3 | 2017 | London, UK | Magnus Carlsen | |
| 4 | 2018 | London, UK* | Hikaru Nakamura | |
| 5 | 2019 | London, UK* | Ding Liren | |
| 6 | 2021 | St. Louis, USA | Wesley So | |
| 7 | 2022 | St. Louis, USA | Alireza Firouzja | |
| 8 | 2023 | St. Louis, USA | Fabiano Caruana | |
| 9 | 2024 | St. Louis, USA | Alireza Firouzja | |
| 10 | 2025 | Sao Paulo, Brazil* |
In the decade it’s existed, the Tour has finished with a four-player final tournament only three times, in London in 2018 and 2019, and now this year in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
The field was decided over five events, with each of the nine Tour regulars playing both classical tournaments in Bucharest, Romania and St. Louis, USA, as well as two of the three rapid and blitz events held in Warsaw (Poland), Zagreb (Croatia), and again St. Louis. The top-four finished clearly above the rest, except for GM Wesley So, who won the Sinquefield Cup in a playoff and missed out by only half a point.
Grand Chess Tour Standings Before Finals
| # | Player | FED | POL | ROU | CRO | STL | SIN | Total | Prize Money |
| 1 | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 10 | 10 | — | 8 | 5 | 33 | $144,500 | |
| 2 | Fabiano Caruana | — | 7 | 3.5 | 10 | 10 | 30.5 | $139,167 | |
| 3 | Levon Aronian | 7 | 3.5 | — | 13 | 7 | 30.5 | $109,125 | |
| 4 | Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu | 8 | 10 | 2 | — | 10 | 30 | $178,334 | |
| 5 | Wesley So | — | 3.5 | 10 | 6 | 10 | 29.5 | $139,792 | |
| 6 | Alireza Firouzja | 6 | 10 | 6.5 | — | 2 | 24.5 | $113,166 | |
| 7 | Nodirbek Abdusattorov | — | 6 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 19 | $67,500 | |
| 8 | Gukesh Dommaraju | — | 3.5 | 8 | 4.5 | 3 | 19 | $68,625 | |
| 9 | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 3.5 | 1 | 6.5 | — | 5 | 16 | $59,333 |
The first three finalists are veterans of the tour, with Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana, and Aronian all playing in the first GCT Tour Finals back in London in 2018, though GM Hikaru Nakamura took the title after beating Caruana and Vachier-Lagrave. A year later Vachier-Lagrave beat GM Magnus Carlsen in the Semifinals but lost to GM Ding Liren in the Final, while Aronian lost to both Ding and Carlsen.
With the Sao Paulo connection we can go even further back to a precursor of the Grand Chess Tour, the 2011 and 2012 Grand Slams, which ended with six-player tournaments split between Brazil and Bilbao, Spain. Carlsen, not yet world champion, won both, with Aronian playing in 2011 and both Aronian and Caruana taking part in 2012. In fact in 2012, the Brazilian half of the event ended with Caruana leading, Aronian second, and GMs Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Sergey Karjakin, and Paco Vallejo trailing in their wake.
Those events were held in a glass box placed in the Ibirapuera Park, while in 2025 the players are competing on a more conventional stage in the World Trade Center.
The one player for whom playing in the Finals is a completely new experience is 20-year-old Praggnanandhaa, although he did get a front-row seat back in the last Finals in 2019!
✨Throwback to London 2019 ✨
A young Praggnanandhaa 🇮🇳 wasn’t yet part of the Grand Chess Tour, but he made his mark by winning the London Chess Classic FIDE Open with 7.5/9 🏆 — crossing 2600 and showing the world his incredible potential. He won it jointly with GM Anton… pic.twitter.com/hQbQM2dVG1
— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) September 24, 2025
The Indian star “sneaked in” to the Finals by half a point, but in fact he dominated in classical chess, tying for first place in both events. Since the classical events had a higher prize fund he’s also the leading earner of the Tour with $178,334 already banked. There’s another $150,000 on offer for winning in Sao Paulo, with $100,000 for 2nd, $60,000 for 3rd, and $40,000 for 4th.
The format is a knockout, with each match played over two classical, two rapid, and four blitz games. The scoring system is also unusual.
With six points for a win any decisive classical games would be huge.
Caruana 3-3 Aronian: An Opening Bomb?
In the game Caruana won against Carlsen in round one in Sao Paulo in 2012 the world number-one played the French Defense, just as Aronian did 13 years later. On the surface it looked like we might get the same outcome, since Caruana played the very rare 7.a3, later commenting, “7.Be3 is the main line, but the theory there is so developed that it’s maybe necessary to look for some rare alternatives like this.” He then followed up with the novelty 9.h4!?.
Aronian seemed to be on the ropes, having fallen into some deep home preparation, an impression enhanced when he replied with 9…h5!?, a move the watching Kasparov said would get you thrown out of a tournament back in former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik‘s day.
The Armenian-U.S. star explained after the game, however, that he’d considered playing 7.a3 himself, and had also looked at the h-pawn push:
I knew this idea with h5, g6, and I knew there are also lots of interesting options for Black, but I couldn’t remember them. I just remembered that h5, g6 is kind of solid!
Caruana also explained that he knew that the computer evaluated 9…h5 as just as good as a number of other options, while something like the playable 9…0-0!? could lead to insane positions. He shared some lines, since he said he was unlikely to play this again.
In the game the moment of truth came on move 13, when Caruana could have played 13.Be3!?, offering a pawn sacrifice on h4. Instead he pushed 13.g3?!, after which White’s advantage had gone. Caruana admitted he wasn’t happy to play as he did, but he both knew the position should be roughly equal and also couldn’t calculate the pawn sacrifice clearly:
Maybe I should have sac’ed the pawn. It wasn’t clear to me, perhaps it was a misevaluation, but I don’t think it was such an easy decision.
To rub salt in any minor wounds, Aronian then revealed he wasn’t planning to take the pawn at all.
“A very minor disappointment,” said Caruana, who will now have Black on day two. There was much more excitement in the other game.
Praggnanandhaa 3-3 Vachier-Lagrave: Mutual Regrets
Perhaps the defining moment of this topsy-turvy game came on move 39. Praggnanandhaa had 39.Qc7!, which would force Vachier-Lagrave to give up an exchange to stay in the game, and was on the brink of playing it, as you could see on the live video. Instead he hesitated and ultimately played 39.Rc2? with one second to spare—condemning himself to defending an endgame a pawn down.
Praggnanandhaa makes his 39th move with 1 second to spare — 39.Qc7! was powerful, but after 39.Rc2?! he’s going to be a pawn down! https://t.co/xWV1U6Evpl pic.twitter.com/pVnXfNY7sq
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 28, 2025
He later explained:
I don’t know why I panicked here, there was just no reason to panic! I wanted to play 39.Qc7 and I was looking at this 39…Rxd5, or 39…Qf6, then for some reason I suddenly saw 39…Re8 [40.Bxg4! wins on the spot, as Praggnanandhaa later realized], when I was down to seven seconds or something, and then I panicked and I could have literally played any other move and made an easier draw, and instead I played this 39.Rc2.
I don’t know why I panicked!
—Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu
Praggnanandhaa was feeling bad after the game, but his mood picked up when GM Maurice Ashley pointed out a couple of ways Vachier-Lagrave could have won the tricky rook endgame that arose.
Praggnanandhaa pointed out the draw was a fair result and should have been achieved much earlier, if his opponent hadn’t got into trouble. MVL explained:
I tried my best to surprise Pragg in the opening today. It worked out well, but the problem was in the middlegame I’m not very familiar with these Catalans and probably I chose the wrong plan, but there were so many options to calculate from the start… It was a fun game to play!
It was a fun game to play!
—Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
That’s our Game of the Day, which has been analyzed by GM Rafael Leitao below.
On day two colors will be reversed, with another six points for a classical win on the line before the Semifinals move to rapid and blitz.
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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