Tata Steel Chess 2025, Round 2: Praggnanandhaa beats Harikrishna to join Gukesh in five-way lead at top; Vaishali in joint lead in Challengers

Tata Steel Chess 2025, Round 2: Praggnanandhaa beats Harikrishna to join Gukesh in five-way lead at top; Vaishali in joint lead in Challengers

GM R. Praggnanandhaa played a swift game to beat compatriot Pentala Harikrishna with black pieces in the second round of the Tata Steel Chess 2025 in Wijk aan Zee on Sunday.

Playing the Nyezhmetdinov-Rossolimo Attack of Sicilian Defense, Praggnanandhaa was left with three extra pawns in the endgame as Harikirshna folded on the 55th move.

With this win, Praggnanandhaa moved to a five-way joint lead at the top with Fabiano Caruana, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Vincent Keymer and World Champion D. Gukesh all at 1.5/2 after the second round.

Both Caruana and Abdusattorov played decisive games to earn their first win of the event. While Caruana got the better of local player Jorden van Foreest, Abdusattorov handed Leon Luke Mendonca his second loss in as many rounds.

Meanwhile, Harikrishna, who began his tournament with a shocking win over World No. 4 Arjun Erigaisi in the first round, slumped to eighth place with 1.0/2.

Gukesh, on the other hand, played another fighting game and held Vladimir Fedoseev to share the spoils in his second-round clash.

Fedoseev kept Gukesh under time pressure while having a position advantage at some point, but the 18-year-old kept his cool to play out a 43-move draw.

Arjun and Anish Giri stabilised after their first-round losses and played out an uneventful draw to open their accounts. Both occupy the bottom half of the points table with 0.5/2 points.

In the Challengers section, both Indians in the fray, Divya Deshmukh and R. Vaishali, also drew their respective games. While Divya held Thai Dai Van Nguyen, Vaishali shared the spoils with China’s Lu Miaoyi.