GMs Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave will play the title match of the 2025 Grand Chess Tour Finals. Caruana won his match 15-13 against GM Levon Aronian, while Vachier-Lagrave won 17-11 against GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. In a cruel turn of events, Praggnanandhaa nearly won twice on demand to even the score in the latter match, but fell apart in a winning position.
Day four, featuring the first classical game of matches for first and third, is on Wednesday, October 1, starting at 2 p.m. ET / 20:00 CEST / 11:30 p.m. IST.
Day 3 Results
Despite the dominant score on paper, Praggnanandhaa was inches from tying the score at a critical moment. Meanwhile, the match between Caruana and Aronian featured just won decisive game, which Caruana won with Black.
Entering day three with even scores after the classical portion, the players contested two rapid games (25+10) followed by four blitz games (5+2). A win in rapid was worth four points, while a win in blitz was worth two.
Vachier-Lagrave 17-11 Praggnanandhaa: MVL Shuts Down Last Minute Comeback
Vachier-Lagrave took an early lead after winning rapid game one, importantly winning four points for just one game. It would take two blitz wins for Praggnanandhaa to stage a comeback after that.
In Monday’s classical game, Vachier-Lagrave failed to prove anything against the Caro-Kann Defense, but he returned clearly having done his homework. In our Game of the Day, he won a positional squeeze and used a space advantage to suffocate his opponent deep in the endgame. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the full game below.
The next two games were drawn, but they were anything but peaceful; one or both sides were winning in each case.
Praggnanandhaa had his first chance to stage a comeback in the very next game. Playing with the isolated pawn, he had a winning combination available after 21…Nbd7? 22.Bc4!—entailing a pawn sacrifice for a decisive attack—but the moment came and went. The Indian GM played the more circumspect 22.Qc3, and MVL had no trouble defending from there.
The next game was a barnburner in the Sveshnikov Sicilian, and both players missed wins in a time scramble (under 10 seconds each). First it the Frenchman who could have won with 40.Rg6, picking up the h-pawn and stopping the b-pawn a move later. Instead, he played 40.Ra7??, a losing move that could have led to resignation in two moves. Praggnanandhaa missed the critical idea of 41.Bb7 and the game ended in a draw.
Praggnanandhaa, needing to win, played the Noteboom Variation of the Slav Defense, but with colors reversed. The opening choice worked out wonderfully, as Vachier-Lagrave lamented, “I decided not to try and force a draw and try to play normal chess, and it backfired very quickly!”
Praggnanandhaa won an exchange and converted it ruthlessly. He needed one more win to even the score just before the final game.
What happened next is something Praggnanandhaa will want to forget. He outplayed his opponent, again won the exchange, and then proceeded to collapse and lose the game, from a winning position.
Vachier-Lagrave explained, “The fact that my position was so bad, it helped me once we got to this endgame. Because if Pragg is in a position of defense from the start, he would probably defend much better.”
Although the match was already over, they played the last game anyway, according to the regulations, and Vachier-Lagrave won with the black pieces. He was the first player through to the title match.
Caruana 15-13 Aronian: Caruana Adds King’s Indian To His Repertoire
The tension was high in this match as neither player could break through until the penultimate game.
The opening of game one revealed Caruana’s match strategy with the black pieces. On Monday, Aronian sidestepped whatever his opponent was planning with 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 by playing 3.g3. Did Caruana prepare a Grunfeld, a King’s Indian, or some other system? We found out in game one on Tuesday, as this time Aronian didn’t back down.
It was the King’s Indian Defense after all. Caruana revealed that he’d worked on the opening “in great detail” before the tournament. He played it in every black game of the match, with varying success, and said, “I just wanted to keep sticking to the King’s Indian because it was my plan before the tournament. I just wanted to learn a new opening.”
I just wanted to learn a new opening.
—Fabiano Caruana
Aronian got the better side of the Petrosian Variation in rapid game one, but with under 30 seconds, he repeated moves and Caruana immediately claimed the threefold repetition—saving a game where he was much worse.
Caruana said, “I understand his decision to repeat moves when he had like 20 seconds left. I still have two minutes and there was substantial tactical danger for him as well… if you don’t see what to do, you start making random moves, and things can fall apart.” In Aronian’s words, “I chickened out!”
I chickened out!
—Levon Aronian
Game two was an Italian Opening that ended in a threefold repetition on move 26. Caruana correctly pointed to 18.dxe5 as the move that gave away any hope of an advantage, saying, it “was a bad decision, and after this I don’t think I have anything.” A few moves later, “I didn’t feel like I have any reason to continue.” The players rushed off to blitz.
We saw two more draws before we got a decisive game. First, we saw another King’s Indian where Caruana essayed an interesting …Bxc3 to ruin the white pawn structure. Aronian had one chance to play a crushing e5 break, but “chickened out” again and didn’t get another opportunity. Then we saw an Italian with 98.5 accuracy by both sides.
Caruana won a sparkling game with the King’s Indian Defense in the very next game, mercilessly attacking the white king that ended up being exposed behind White’s overextended pawns. The attack featured a pretty exchange sacrifice, but one that could have let go of the win. As is, however, the game leaves a tremendous impression.
GM Maurice Ashley said, “It was just really was a story of Levon collapsing under the pressure.”
In the last game, Caruana forced a draw in a Pirc Defense with the white pieces by move 30 (in a winning position). Despite predicting his chances of victory to be 99 percent in the position, he said taking the draw was the “professional” thing to do in such a situation.
After recalling a playoff match they played way back when in 2010 at the Biel Chess Festival, which he won, Caruana said, “I’m just happy to be in the Final. I know it’s going to be super tough, Maxime is in good shape obviously, and always a really challenging opponent, but I’m ready for a fight.”
I’m just happy to be in the Final
—Fabiano Caruana
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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