GM Fabiano Caruana won an incredibly close match against GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu to reach the Speed Chess Championship 2025 Quarterfinals, where he will face GM Magnus Carlsen. Only the bullet segment separated the two players, with Caruana breaking away by just one point with an 11-10 final score.
It’s a bittersweet day for Team Liquid, as all three players—Caruana, Praggnanandhaa, and Carlsen—belong to the same team. Only one of them will make it to the Finals in London.
The bracket is set for the Quarterfinals, and when confirmed, we will add the date and time for the first quarterfinal match here—as well as on our Events page.
2025 Speed Chess Championship Bracket
The Round of 16 is over and the winners of the next set of matches will punch their tickets to London. At the bottom of this report, we share the pre-match predictions for each of the matchups.
Starting this year, the winner of the annual Speed Chess Championship have their name etched into the Naroditsky Cup, in memory of the late GM Daniel Naroditsky, as announced on the broadcast.
The cup will have the winners of previous years engraved on it and become the permanent trophy of the SCC. There will be one cup and winners will not take it home.
Caruana spoke briefly about Naroditsky’s legacy in the post-match interview and said, “I think that his legacy will remain for very long, long after we’re gone.”
“He was also ever-present, either in commentating or in playing. I think that his legacy will remain for very long, long after we’re all gone… He’s going to be so dearly missed by so many people in the chess world.”
– Fabiano Caruana on Daniel Naroditsky#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/2bvnDq2LIP
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 30, 2025
Caruana 11-10 Praggnanandhaa
It’s the first time these two have played a match in the Speed Chess Championship, and the pre-match prediction was virtually set at 50-50. On Chess.com, Praggnanandhaa led their head-to-head score +5 =1 -2 going into the match, and readers may remember him knocking Caruana out of the 2023 FIDE World Cup.
Still, Caruana got to the Quarterfinals in six out of the eight previous SCCs he participated in. Experience was certainly on his side, as the younger grandmaster made his debut only this year.
The actual score turned out to be pretty close to the prediction, with Caruana only breaking away by one point. It all came down to the bullet segment. Caruana earned a total of $6,189.57, while Praggnanandhaa made $1,935.43 by win percentage.
5+1: Caruana 3.5-3.5 Praggnanandhaa
At the end of the first segment, which ended in an equal score, Danny exclaimed, “Somehow the Chess.com stats predicted a level match, but I don’t think it predicted that we would get there this way, with weird mouse slips and blunders!”
I don’t think it predicted that we would get there this way, with weird mouse slips and blunders!
—Danny Rensch
After the first game ended in a draw—Caruana was winning, then Praggnanandhaa was winning, and finally Caruana escaped—Praggnanandhaa took the first win with a crushing attack, even if he missed a direct win earlier with 21.Bd4. In the game, 25.Qf6!, followed by the cruncher 26.Nh5!, was as sweet as it was unstoppable.
In the next game, Praggnanandhaa played a sound exchange sacrifice, but soon went wrong and Caruana made the most of the extra material to tie up the score. Caruana took the lead with a satisfying win from the black side of the King’s Indian Defense, after playing a positional pawn sacrifice and, much later, crashing through with two rooks on the seventh rank.
Just moments after Danny praised the high-quality play in the game that followed, in an equal position, Caruana hung his rook in one move with a mouse slip. He later explained that he’d clicked on his rook, changed his mind and meant to click on the knight, but instead accidentally clicked on the c4-square.
😱 Caruana mouse slips his rook!
… just seconds after Danny says, “These guys are playing very high level chess with low time.”https://t.co/15xGj32FFV#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/lS109gj8jM
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 30, 2025
Then, in a time scramble, Caruana achieved a winning position with Black but collapsed with little time. Praggnanandhaa took the lead, which bounced from one player to the other like a hot potato.
Finally, the U.S. champion managed to equalize the score in the last 5+0 game. Though he missed the first chance; after 21…Ba6?? 22.g4! would have, strangely, trapped the knight in the middle of the board. He won not too long later by, somewhat prosaically, pushing his b-pawn to touchdown.
3+1: Caruana 3.5-3.5 Praggnanandhaa
The 3+1 portion also didn’t separate the players, though this time Praggnanandhaa was the last one to win and tie up the score.
In game one, Caruana won a pawn-up endgame that he really shouldn’t have. As Hambleton said, “That is almost a dead draw to a dead loss… we just have to assume that’s a mouse slip,” about the move 34.f3??, when surely 34.f4 was the intention.
After a draw, Praggnanandhaa won two games in a row. The first time, Caruana collapsed with little time and allowed 23.b3!, overloading the queen.
The second time, Praggnanandhaa won with a destructive attack and took a one-point lead.
Caruana evened the score in one of the wildest games of the day. He found a precise combination, but Praggnanandhaa found an even more impressive defense, and then the players just plunged into a mad time scramble. The American ultimately won with the rare imbalance of two queens against queen and two knights.
The players traded wins in the last two games to again finish in a tied score of 7-7 ahead of the bullet.
In the penultimate game, it was Praggnanandhaa with the queen who was pressing but could not find a way forward in the time trouble. After a nervous maneuvering phase, it was Caruana who won the scramble.
Praggnanandhaa won the last game of the segment, in another time scramble, to even the score.
1+1: Caruana 4-3 Praggnanandhaa
Caruana just barely won the match in the bullet portion, when overtime looked like a very real possibility.
The first two games, which both ended in draws, took about 10 minutes to complete, leaving just 15 minutes left for the portion. The second game—the much more exciting one—drained the most match clock as it took 131 moves to complete. Praggnanandhaa didn’t manage to win the exchange-up endgame, and even landed in a losing position briefly, before it ended in a miraculous draw.
“You can’t help but shake your head no matter which player you are,” says Aman as Caruana draws a crazy, exchange-down position!https://t.co/4ZnnYbXAhD#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/V6izntSeul
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 30, 2025
After that, for the first time in the match, Caruana took a two-point lead with back-to-back wins. In the first one, Praggnanandhaa hung a full rook, while in the second, the U.S. champion found a brilliant final move to put it away.
Praggnanandhaa struck back with a win in a rook endgame, but the game that came after was the decider. With a win after a long maneuvering phase, Caruana decided the match with a game to spare. Had Praggnanandhaa at least drawn, the match would have still been up in the air.
After tenacious defense, Praggnanandhaa cracks and Caruana wins the match!https://t.co/MciU20L2ql#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/INiND8HIIh
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 30, 2025
Praggnanandhaa won the last game, bringing the difference in score down to one point, but it didn’t change the match winner.
Caruana, who has been playing back-to-back tournaments since the end of September, said in the interview, “I’m just exhausted, there’s not much more to say about it.” Just yesterday he finished the 2025 Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown in St. Louis and stayed up late at a concert. Despite being tired, he said he entered the match relaxed, “I couldn’t really expect too much, considering how much I’ve been playing.”
He expected a close match and got it. “The match sort of lived up to my expectations, that it was kind of back and forth and could have been decided in a few critical moments. It came down to bullet,” and he thought he played well, “for bullet standards.”
Quarterfinals Pairings & Predictions
Before the following graphic was presented, Caruana quipped, “I hope that your simulation gives me more than one percent, that’s all I’m asking.” It’s not that bad, but Carlsen—vying for his fifth title—is still the overwhelming favorite.
“He has a level that’s just a cut above most of the players, but he always runs into a big-time matchup, whether it’s Magnus or Hikaru,” said Hambleton about Caruana’s past performances. Danny added, “Historically, one knock against Magnus in the SCC, is that he can start slow,” so a strong start may be critical.
On the same side of the bracket, we have GM Denis Lazavik vs. GM Hans Niemann, who will face off in the SCC for the first time. Our stats team predicted a slight edge for Lazavik with the slight difference coming in the bullet portion.
“I just don’t agree with this,” said Danny, who viewed Niemann as the favorite in the matchup. Hambleton explained, “You look at the other matchups that have been made, Danny, and I think it’s fair that Denis is one of the weaker of maybe the four big matchup pairings that could have happened.”
GM Alireza Firouzja vs. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi is another matchup that, surprisingly, has never occurred in the SCC yet. Our stats team considers Firouzja to be an overwhelming favorite, though Danny was doubtful that he was this much of a favorite. Hambleton said, “If I had to pick [a prediction] that was maybe the one I don’t agree with, it would be this one on the screen right now,” recalling how dominant Nepomniachtchi was against GM Anish Giri in their Round of 16 match.
Last but not least, we have the all-American matchup GM Hikaru Nakamura vs. GM Wesley So. It’s their fifth time playing in the SCC—note that Nakamura has played in every SCC since the first, while So has played in all of them except the first.
Nakamura is given as an overwhelming favorite, more than any of the other matches. “The truth is Hikaru has beaten Wesley four times in the SCC, this is their fifth matchup, that has to give you that extra advantage,” said Hambleton. “I make no apology in saying that Hikaru’s the favorite for a reason,” added Danny, while acknowledging that Nakamura will have to be at the top of his bullet game to take it.
What are your thoughts? Who will make it to London? Let us know in the comments below!
The Speed Chess Championship, which starts on October 12 and culminates with Live Finals on February 8, 2026 in London, is Chess.com’s most important speed chess event. Some of the biggest names in chess compete to determine the best speed chess player in the world. The games are played with time controls of 5+1, 3+1, and 1+1. The prize fund is $250,000.
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