GM Jorden van Foreest bounced back after two losses in a row to beat GM Ray Robson in the only decisive game of round five of the Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters 2025. As the tournament crossed the halfway mark, GM Vincent Keymer maintained his one-point lead with a convincing draw against GM Vidit Gujrathi, while GM Arjun Erigaisi was unable to squeeze out a win against 18-year-old GM Pranav Venkatesh and slipped below GM Gukesh Dommaraju to world number-six.
GM Abhimanyu Puranik increased his lead to a full point in the Challengers by beating GM Harika Dronavalli to move to 4.5/5, while IM Harshavardhan G B scored his first win of the tournament, defeating GM Vaishali Rameshbabu.
Round six will start on Tuesday, August 12, at 5:30 a.m. ET/11:30 CEST/3 p.m. IST.
Standings After Round 5: Challengers
Masters: Jorden Strikes Back As Arjun Frustrated
After storming to 3/3, Keymer could afford to take things easy, as he did in round five by navigating a tricky middlegame to liquidate into a drawish queen endgame. Vidit had played the longest game the day before and this time was happy to take a quick draw by repetition.
That gave Arjun the chance to cut the gap at the top to half a point, but the top seed was surprised in the opening by Pranav, who met the Ruy Lopez with 3…Bc5, played around 36 times less often than the standard 3…a6 according to the Chess.com database. Arjun played a very rare move himself, 6.O-O, but Pranav didn’t blink and after 6…dxc3 we had a position almost never seen before.
By move 18, when Pranav took his first long think of the game, he still had more than the 90 minutes with which he began.
Nevertheless, Arjun steered toward an endgame where he had two knights and chances to press, but for a second day in a row his usual precision seemed to desert him. It was never quite clear where he could most hope for a win, but it wasn’t in the bishop-vs-three-pawns endgame that eventually appeared on the board.
Soon the game fizzled out into a draw that cost Arjun 2.3 rating points and saw Gukesh creep above him on the live rating list.
Arjun can put everything right in Tuesday’s round six, however, when he has the black pieces against leader Keymer and could catch him with a win.
GM Anish Giri made a fifth draw in a row after going for a Giuoco Piano line against GM Karthikeyan Murali that had featured in one of the games of 2025—from a match between GMs Wei Yi and Levon Aronian in China.
Wei Yi opened the scoring in the match against Levon Aronian with a beautiful win in Game 3! https://t.co/eZrGlaI8ob pic.twitter.com/eG8fHuimFV
— chess24 (@chess24com) July 4, 2025
Karthikeyan chose 11…a5! instead of Aronian’s 11…f6!?, however, and the 73-move draw was far less fun!
There was one more draw, the quickest of the day in the Masters, but it left a lot of questions, since the final position where GM Awonder Liang took a draw by repetition against GM Nihal Sarin seemed to have plenty of play left.
Fortunately, we got both players on the live broadcast, separately, to explain the final moves. It all came down to 21…Nc3? by Nihal. He later explained, “I didn’t see anything special here for me to try, so I thought I’ll just move the knight to a good square, but I happened to choose the worst possible square!”
Liang himself commented, “Why would he put his knight there, like one of the worst places he can put his knight?” and explained he was feeling sleepy, felt he was blundering things, and expected 21…Nc5!. After that move, “We could have had a nice respectable draw and now I have to sit here and explain myself!”
We could have had a nice respectable draw and now I have to sit here and explain myself!
—Awonder Liang on regretting Nihal not playing the correct knight move
The point, as Nihal realized too late, was that the knight on c3 could be trapped—though with best play a fight would still be ahead.
“I shouldn’t be too happy about today, I shouldn’t rely on luck!” said Nihal after that close escape.
We didn’t get a first day of all draws in the Masters, however, since Van Foreest managed to recover from two losses in a row to take down Robson. It was a fascinating struggle, with Robson’s exchange sacrifice 27…Rxg3! seemingly enough to force a draw.
After 28.fxg3 Rh2+ the white king was confined to the back rank, but there were a huge number of twists and turns ahead before Van Foreest stopped the bleeding in the best possible manner—by winning an 82-move thriller!
That’s our Game of the Day, with GM Rafael Leitao describing the final stages as “one of the most spectacular endgames I’ve ever studied.”
Round six of the Masters is set up perfectly, as mentioned before, since second-placed Arjun will get a chance to beat and catch Keymer.
Challengers: Abhimanyu Increases His Lead
It was also a relatively quiet day in the Challengers, with three draws, including in the clash between second-place players GM Pranesh M and GM Leon Luke Mendonca. It’s also noteworthy that GM Adhiban Baskaran, who might have been nominated at the start as the player least likely to make all draws, has now ended all five of his games peacefully (like Giri in the Masters).
It was a tough day for the two women in the Challengers, with both going astray in defendable or even promising positions. Vaishali slipped against Harshavardhan, who gratefully accepted his first win of the tournament. 43.Bc3?, played with 13 seconds on the clock, was a losing move.
The key game for the standings, however, saw top-seed Abhimanyu extend his lead after Harika missed a great chance to seize control of the game with 24.Rd6!. Instead, 24.Rxd8? let Black take over.
The situation in the Challengers is similar to the Masters, since in round six Abhimanyu has White against Pranesh, who can catch the leader with a win.
How To Watch
The third edition of the Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters is taking place August 7-15, 2025, in Chennai, India. There are two 10-play round-robins, the Masters and the Challengers, with 90 minutes for all moves, plus a 30-second increment from move 1. The top prize is ₹25,00,000, which is almost $30,000.
