Caruana, Praggnanandhaa Lead After Scoring 1st Wins
GMs Fabiano Caruana and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu lead the Superbet Chess Classic Romania 2025 after three rounds, both winning for the first time in the tournament. Caruana toppled the previous leader, GM Alireza Firouzja, while Praggnanandhaa won an exquisite endgame against GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov.
After botching a winning position, World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju overpressed against GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac and got an objectively lost position, but the Romanian number-one didn't find the killer blow. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had GM Levon Aronian on the ropes, but Aronian saved that game too. The only peaceful draw was GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda vs. GM Wesley So.
Round four is on Saturday, May 10, starting at 8:30 a.m. ET / 14:30 CET / 6:00 p.m. IST.
We could have had four decisive results on Friday, but we had just two. Caruana scored the first Black win of the tournament.
Round 3 Results
That leaves Caruana and Praggnanandhaa in the lead with six players a half-point behind.
Standings After Round 3
Firouzja 0-1 Caruana
"It was kind of a rollercoaster in terms of winning or not winning," said Caruana about the topsy-turvy game. Overall, he was generally the one on top in the Queen's Gambit Declined, but Firouzja put up immense resistance.
Caruana called this "a really important victory for me," expanding: "You get winning chances very often, but it's always tough because he's playing extremely well and he's enormously tricky, so I am very happy with this game."
In a difficult endgame, Firouzja kept recovering over and over again from lost positions back to defensible ones. And even in the bizarre rook vs. queen endgame at the very end, he was objectively equal, though it proved too difficult in practice.
This victory caused a shakeup in the standings as the former tournament leader dropped down to the group of trailers.
Praggnanandhaa 1-0 Abdusattorov
This was one of the two Grunfeld Defenses we saw on Friday. Though Praggnanandhaa wasn't expecting a Grunfeld, he had a nice idea prepared.
His key opening idea was rushing the h-pawn up the board, h4-h5-h6, though he revealed after that there's a quick antidote to it: "If you basically know that you have to take ...gxh5, it's not really a big idea... [but] it's not an easy move if you don't know."
Abdusattorov didn't know this, however, and allowed the pawn to get to h6, where it would exert long-lasting pressure. GM Rafael Leitao, in his annotations (included further below), explains how AI has led us to a greater understanding of these positions:
The advance of the pawn to h6 in various positions, especially in the Grunfeld, has become very popular after the study of the revolutionary games from AlphaZero. In the past, the h-pawn advance was more associated with an attack on this file, usually with a pawn exchange on g6. Now we understand that the pawn on h6 creates great inconveniences for Black, even in the endgame.
From there, Praggnanandhaa squeezed a long endgame, but one that was well worth his effort. Leitao analyzes the full Game of the Day below.
He was met by a throng of fans after the game.
Praggnanandhaa scores his first win at the Superbet Chess Classic! He outplayed Nodirbek Abdusattorov in Round 3 and later spent time with local chess fans.#grandchesstour #Praggnanandhaa pic.twitter.com/pevGXovOlf
— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) May 9, 2025
Aronian ½-½ Vachier-Lagrave
This was one of the wildest games of the round, in which all but one of the games were exciting. The American GM said in the interview, "I'm here, I might as well try to win games."
I'm here, I might as well try to win games.
—Levon Aronian
Aronian challenged the French number-two in the other Grunfeld of the day. And 15.a4, sacrificing the h-pawn, was the beginning of the madness. White had four pieces trained on the b5-square, but Black played the fantastic 15...b5 pawn break anyway. We were in for a treat.
From there, both players continued attacking, with neither hardly stopping to protect anything. What's more, they were playing rather quickly for such a crazy position. By 16.Bh6, both players still had over an hour on the clock.
Vachier-Lagrave sacrificed the exchange and achieved a winning position, but he had to finish things off with 30...b2. Instead, he allowed a counter-exchange sacrifice, and Aronian slipped away.
The escape for Aronian is very welcome news, as it could have been his second loss in a row. He was all smiles in the interview, saying, "I'm very happy because I've blundered lots of things and somehow things worked out and I just got lucky. I forgot he can just take on d5 and then e4."
He also quipped: "One thing is to play badly, but another thing is to play badly and slowly. I have the golden double!" He said that if he's playing badly, "at least I should try to play fast!"
It's a downer for Vachier-Lagrave, who could have enjoyed his second win in a row—after his round-one loss. He would have been in the shared lead.
Gukesh ½-½ Deac
It's not clear which player should be unhappier about the draw, as both of them could have lost this one. Deac responded to Gukesh's b3 system with a strange 5...Nc6, though it's a move Gukesh himself played last year with Black.
The world champion went on to outplay his opponent, however, and essentially had a winning tactical blow with 19.f5. The move he played was still winning, but it arguably required more work.
From there, Deac defended like an absolute beast on one minute. Curiously, even on 30 seconds, he would walk away from the board and even off the stage—when Gukesh made his move, Deac would calmly return and play his move without a worry.
His heroic defense paid dividends as it caused the world champion to overextend, and it's very possible that if he found 54...Bc4 he would have one-upped his career-best win from Thursday (against Aronian) and also been in the shared lead.
So ½-½ Duda
There really isn't anything to say about this game. The players traded off pieces in a Nimzo-Indian Defense and repeated moves three times in the equal queen endgame. They were the first ones out.
We'll have to keep an eye on the tournament leaders on Saturday. Caruana will have the white pieces against a potentially injured but equally hungry Abdusattorov; Praggnanandhaa will have the black pieces against Deac.
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Yasser Seirawan, IM Nazi Paikidze, GM Peter Svidler, GM Cristian Chirila, and WGM Anastasiya Karlovich.
The 2025 Superbet Romania Chess Classic is the second event on the 2025 Grand Chess Tour and runs from May 7 to 16 at the Grand Hotel Bucharest in Romania. It's a 10-player round-robin with a time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment starting on move one. The prize fund is $350,000.
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