Uzchess Cup 2025, Final Round and Tiebreaks
Praggnanandhaa Wins Again
Dommaraju Gukesh is the World Champion and Magnus Carlsen is the World’s top-rated player, but so far this has been the year of Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. The 19-year-old won Wijk aan Zee by defeating Gukesh in a playoff, he won the Superbet Classic in Romania - again in a playoff, this time against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alireza Firouzja, and now he has won the UzChess Cup. For the third time, this involved winning a tiebreaker, this time against Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Javokhir Sindarov.
The first trick was getting to a playoff. Entering the last round he was a point behind Abdusattorov and half a point behind Sindarov. Both of his rivals had the white pieces - Sindarov against Parham Maghsoodloo and Abdusattorov against…Pragg himself. Tough odds, to put it mildly.
And yet, everything worked out perfectly. Sindarov got nothing against Maghsoodloo, and the game quickly fizzled to a draw. Abdusattorov, meanwhile, quickly lost the thread in the opening and was losing after just 18 moves. Winning took time, but win he did, resulting in a three-way tie for first.
It could have been a four-way tie had Arjun Erigaisi managed to defeat Aravindh Chithambaram. Aravindh had a terrible tournament, going winless and losing four games up to this point. He played the opening very well, equalizing in a sharp Scotch sideline with Black, but as often happened in the tournament he went astray in the late middlegame and found himself in a lost position. This time, however, it was his opponent who went astray, and a couple of errors by Erigaisi allowed Aravindh to liquidate to a dead drawn rook endgame.
Before we get to the tiebreaker, a quick recap of the other results. Richard Rapport and Nodirbek Yakubboev drew uneventfully to finish on 50%, while Shamsiddin Vokhidov won his second straight game (after going a winless -3 over the first seven rounds) to defeat Ian Nepomniachtchi, who lost his first and last games in the tournament while drawing the rest.
Here are the games from round 9, and here are the final standings (not counting the tiebreaks):
(1-3) Praggnanandhaa, Abdusattorov, Sindarov 5.5 (of 9)
(4) Erigaisi 5
(5-7) Maghsoodloo, Yakubboev, Rapport 4.5
(8) Vokhidov 4
(9) Nepomniachtchi 3.5
(10) Aravindh 2.5
On to the tiebreaker…s. First, the players went through a double round-robin of 3’+2” blitz. Abdusattorov and Sindarov drew both games - but I’m not sure what happened in their second game - did they even play? It all came down therefore to Pragg’s games. In the first cycle he beat Abdusattorov with White but lost to Sindarov with Black, and in the second cycle it went the other way around. In that second cycle the games were especially dramatic as he lost rook vs. rook and bishop to Abdusattorov and needed to defeat Sindarov to stay alive. As in the final round of the tournament proper, his opponent would win the event if he could just avoid losing to Pragg, and once again he was unable to do it.
Everyone thus finished with 3/6, and for the second tiebreaker it was a single round-robin. Praggnanandhaa started with White against Abdusattorov, and remarkably was on the verge of again having to defend rook vs. rook and bishop. This time, however, he managed to avoid losing his last pawn, and made the draw without having to go through the meat grinder. He then beat Sindarov with Black, forcing Abdusattorov to defeat Sindarov to catch up to him.
I’m not sure what would have happened if Abdusattorov won that final game: would there have been a further two-man playoff, or would Buchholz or some other non-playing tie-breaker have determined a winner? It almost happened, but not quite. Abdusattorov had a winning advantage on multiple occasions in the game, but Sindarov held on and even managed to turn the tables and win.
In the end, therefore, Pragg emerged victorious, Sindarov took a surprising second, and Abdusattorov finished in a heartbreaking third, though on balance, of course, the tournament was a success for him as well.
Here are the playoff games, again with my (brief) comments. It was a great tournament!