All Sharp Games, All Draws In Bucharest
The standings remain unchanged after round five of the Superbet Chess Classic Romania 2025. After a day of all draws, we still have three leaders: GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana, and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, with four players a half-point behind. Despite the results, we had fighting games on all five boards, and three featured sharp battles in the Sicilian Defense.
After a rest day, round six is on Tuesday, May 13, starting at 8:30 a.m. ET / 14:30 CET / 6:00 p.m. IST.
The closest we got to a decisive game was the encounter of GM Gukesh Dommaraju vs. GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, where the world champion nearly suffered his second loss in a row but got away with a perpetual check.
Round 5 Results
Going into the rest day, the standings haven't changed except that everybody's gained a half-point.
Standings After Round 5
Gukesh ½-½ Duda
It's nothing gained, nothing lost for two players who are tied in last place. But a win for either of them would have meant joining the chasing pack on 2.5 points.
It was the one game to start with 1.d4 and we got a Queen's Gambit Declined with 5.Bf4. Things really heated up much later when Gukesh sacrificed his knight for a sequence that should have been a draw, but then stopped checking for one move.
The Polish number-one had a big chance to score his first win of the event, and his first win against the world champion (they'd previously made two draws). But it wasn't meant to be; Gukesh saved it with perpetual check after all, and GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the full Game of the Day below.
Onto the games of our three leaders.
Praggnanandhaa ½-½ Vachier-Lagrave
Praggnanandhaa vs. Vachier-Lagrave was critical for the standings, as it was a direct encounter between two of the leaders. We were treated to a sharp battle in the Sicilian Najdorf. One of its greatest practitioners, GM Garry Kasparov, was happy to weigh in on it.
Praggnanandhaa employed the Sozin Variation (a favorite of GM Bobby Fischer) but with a modern twist: 7.a3. Kasparov pointed out how this pawn move wasn't considered to be a serious option a long time ago but is now acceptable as a way to play against Black's plan of ...b5-b4.
The 13th world champion also spoke fondly of the former days when grandmasters would debate in chess magazines, a facet of chess culture that computers have killed off by showing, quite immediately, the correct answers. He said:
There's no free lunch. Yes, of course, we lost some beauty of the game and analysis, but again, in the change we got a very nice compensation. We know the correct evaluation of the position.
During Round 5, former World Champion Garry Kasparov joined GM Cristian Chirila in the studio to analyze the games, and he shared an insightful reflection on how the chess world has changed. Kasparov spoke on how engines have replaced the era when Grandmasters debated the… pic.twitter.com/XpXDpZXEAo
— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) May 11, 2025
Praggnanandhaa started to take long thinks after Black's 15...Nc4, and he said in the interview he was sure this move was in his file, but he couldn't remember what to do. After first playing 16.Bc1, he went on to sacrifice a pawn with 17.Bg5 on the next move. Black was pressing, but in the endgame, White had full compensation and proved it.
Pragg, still in the lead, wasn't too upset with the result. He said, "It's still an okay result for me. Defending was important today."
Defending was important today.
—Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu
As for what he'll do on the rest day, he said that when he arrived one day early, he and his second played pickleball. Though on Monday, he's not sure if his partner will be up for doing it again.
So ½-½ Caruana
In the game of Wesley So vs. our third leader, Caruana, we saw a sharp Sveshnikov Sicilian. Of course, readers will remember that Caruana played the white side of this opening repeatedly in the 2018 world championship match against GM Magnus Carlsen.
They followed one of the main lines, but Caruana tanked after 19...Ng6 20.g4, the main move in the position and the one Kasparov pointed out as critical. On this move, Caruana thought for 40 minutes—from 53 minutes to 13.
Despite the time pressure, Caruana defended tenaciously and ultimately held a pawn-down position with rooks and opposite-colored bishops. So was the one pressing, but squeezing a full point out of this one was too difficult in practice.
Aronian ½-½ Firouzja
GM Levon Aronian came up with an interesting pawn sacrifice out of the opening—a Sicilian Taimanov with White playing g3. 9.e5!? was a new gambit that had never been played before, and GM Alireza Firouzja said, "I know this e5 move is not correct and I thought I'm much better here, but maybe I underestimated his potential." Indeed, with best play, the computer says the position should be equal, but not better for Black—with best play, that is.
Aronian did err with 13.Nxc5, however, when 13.Nd6+ would have preserved equality, and the main question was how big Firouzja's advantage really was. As Firouzja summarized, "He was trying to make a draw the whole game, and he managed."
Firouzja won in round one but lost in round three with draws in the other games. But he's not deterred. He said, "I think I'm playing good chess but just the result didn't go well. Still, four rounds to go, anything could happen."
Abdusattorov ½-½ Deac
After taking over the d-file and gaining a significant advantage with White, GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov essentially let all of the advantage slip in one move against GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac. The critical mistake was 25.Nd5?, and he probably missed that after the trade, Black had the only move 26...g5! for full equality. Though the game ended in an interesting bishop endgame, the evaluation never changed: equal, equal, equal.
After the rest day, we look forward to seeing Caruana press with the white pieces against, relatively speaking, the biggest target in the tournament, Deac. That being said, Deac is a former 2700-player and certainly no pushover. Vachier-Lagrave will have White against Abdusattorov, while Praggnanandhaa will defend with the black pieces against Duda.
So vs. Aronian is a familiar pairing, while the clash of Firouzja vs. Gukesh promises to be a battle no less thrilling.
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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