GM Nihal Sarin was finally rewarded for his entertaining chess in the Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters 2025 when he won a great fighting game against GM Arjun Erigaisi. That meant that GM Vincent Keymer took a full-point lead despite being held to his first draw, by GM Anish Giri. The day’s only other winner in the Masters was GM Karthikeyan Murali, who toppled GM Jorden van Foreest‘s Berlin Wall.
No fewer than four games were decisive in the Challengers, with GM Abhimanyu Puranik taking the sole lead by beating GM Vaishali Rameshbabu. Among the other winners was GM Ghosh Diptayan, who moved up to joint second place with a turnaround win on his 27th birthday.
Round five will start on Monday, August 11, at 5:30 a.m. ET/11:30 CEST/3 p.m. IST.
Standings After Round 4: Challengers
Masters: Arjun Falls To Nihal In Thriller
Going into round four of the Chennai Grand Masters, the two frontrunners could both target climbing on the live rating list. Arjun would have overtaken GM Fabiano Caruana for the world number-three spot with a win, while Keymer would have entered the top 10 if he won a fourth game in a row, against Giri.
In the end neither would succeed, but a quiet draw by repetition for Keymer saw him climb one spot to world number-14.
If anyone can do it, it’s him!
— GM Levon Aronian (@LevAronian) August 10, 2025
The day would get better for Keymer, though at first it seemed as though everything was going to plan for Arjun. Nihal’s opening with an early b3 didn’t look convincing, and soon Arjun’s pawn had powered down the board to h3, AlphaZero-style.
It felt like a matter of time until Arjun would pick up another win, but instead he lost time—moving a knight from f6 to g4 and back, which left GM Viswanathan Anand wondering on the live commentary why White had been able to make moves while Black did nothing. Nihal was on top, then found a fine tactical line based on 24.Nh5!.
Nihal missed the best way to convert, however, and Arjun fought back in the way great players do, forcing his opponent to win the game more than once. The endgame was drawn a few moves before the end, but Arjun grabbed a pawn on c5 with two seconds to spare, missing that he was going to lose by force to a knight fork.
Arjun captures a poisoned pawn and Nihal takes down the top seed and leader! https://t.co/yu4RKiExlh pic.twitter.com/F8fj7shu7k
— chess24 (@chess24com) August 10, 2025
That thriller is our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao analyzes below.
That loss meant GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu could celebrate his 20th birthday as Indian number-one. Arjun dropped again to world number-five, but he retained sole second place in Chennai on 2.5/4, half a point ahead of a five-player pack.
That pack on 50 percent now includes Karthikeyan, a two-time Indian champion who is playing in the Masters instead of the Challengers as a late replacement for GM Vladimir Fedoseev. Karthikeyan and his opponent Van Foreest had both lost in round three, but it was the Indian star who bounced back with a win after his Dutch opponent went for a flawed tactical operation in the Berlin Defense. 32…Nf3? won an exchange but only brought Black pain.
That was the end of the decisive action in round four. GM Ray Robson settled for a 26-move draw by repetition against his American colleague and friend GM Awonder Liang, though he might have pressed for more.
GM Vidit Gujrathi pressed for 86 moves against GM Pranav Venkatesh in the longest game of the day but at no point gained a significant edge.
Those players will need to recover fast, since in Monday’s round five, when the tournament crosses the halfway mark, Vidit is White against leader Keymer, while Pranav is Black against second-placed Arjun.
Challengers: Four Wins As Abhimanyu Takes Lead
The Challengers saw more decisive action, including three one-sided wins. Abhimanyu took the sole lead by winning a pawn and easing to victory over Vaishali, while co-leader GM Pranesh M was held to a draw by GM Adhiban Baskaran.
Pranesh was caught by two players: GM Leon Luke Mendonca, who beat GM Harika Dronavalli, and Ghosh, who had a very eventful 27th birthday! Ghosh looked to be in a rook endgame where he could scrape a draw at best, but instead he was gifted a win by IM Harshavardhan G B, who lost control and slipped to defeat.
Abhimanyu can look to extend his lead on Monday when he takes on the struggling Harika, while one interesting clash will be between two players in second place: Pranesh and Mendonca.
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.
