Pranesh Wins Titled Tuesday Photo Finish Over Carlsen

GM Pranesh M won a wild game in a wild final round of a wild Titled Tuesday on November 25 to take home first place ahead of GM Magnus Carlsen on tiebreaks. With five players tied for first after 10 rounds, Pranesh and Carlsen were both fighting just to survive in the 11th before both came back to win. Pranesh has been making a bit of a leap, having just won Freestyle Friday to end last week, and claiming his second Titled Tuesday more than two years after his first on June 6, 2023.

With today's result comes the close of the first split of the new Titled Tuesday. (There are three splits in the season.) Carlsen easily took first in the standings there, while Pranesh joined the top 10 with today's performance.

• Broadcast
• CCT Standings
• Recap

Broadcast

If you missed the official Take Take Take broadcast with GM David Howell, Solveig Friberg, and Sverre Krogh Sundbo, you can catch it below!

CCT Standings

The updated Champions Chess Tour (CCT) autumn standings, which will help determine at least six spots in the next Esports World Cup, are given below. "I've had some ups and downs but at the end of the day I don't think anybody was close, so I'll take that," was Carlsen's reaction as this split comes to a close. He also takes the $5,000 prize for winning the split as well.

Recap

For some time, Pranesh seemed like he would win the tournament without too much trouble. He began with 7/7, including a win over Carlsen in the fifth round. Carlsen decided to play for a win, which Pranesh all but said in the postgame was just what he wanted. Sure enough, the decision backfired on Carlsen: "There was absolutely no reason I should have lost," he said after the event. Needless to say, the result turned out to be a pretty big deal. (Side note: How did that expression start? If something really is needless to say, why is it said?)

Pranesh would draw GM Hans Niemann by repetition in the middlegame of round eight, ending his perfect streak. He still kept the outright lead with Carlsen beating GM Anton Korobov, but just half a point back was a murderer's row of Carlsen, Niemann, GM Hikaru Nakamura, GM Denis Lazavik, and GM Alexey Sarana.

The game everyone was following once play resumed in the ninth round after the normal break? Niemann–Carlsen. Neither player was sharp in the early middlegame, but once Magnus was able to get his position moving, he converted with ease despite trailing on the clock most of the time, finally delivering checkmate with under two seconds on his clock.

Meanwhile, Nakamura was unable to keep a big advantage on Pranesh, blundering both his rooks at different points, allowing Pranesh to retain a half-point lead on Carlsen and Lazavik. He'd already beaten both, so the other two played each other, but their game didn't get anywhere except a draw by repetition.

Meanwhile, Pranesh faced countryman GM Arjun Erigaisi, and Arjun did what Carlsen, Lazavik, and Nakamura could not: deliver Pranesh's first loss of the tournament.

With a round left, it was now anyone's tournament to take, with Arjun, Pranesh, Lazavik, Carlsen, and GM Vladislav Artemiev all tied on 8.5 points. Of three key matchups—Arjun vs. Carlsen, Artemiev vs. Lazavik, and GM Alexander Grischuk vs. Pranesh—the first to end was Artemiev–Lazavik, a rather quiet draw.

The other two games were anything but quiet. Grischuk and Arjun both spent most of the game pushing for victory, but ultimately both would lose. Had Grischuk won while Arjun and Carlsen drew, the tournament would have ended in a major pileup atop the standings on nine points. The tournament ending in a two-way tie was still dramatic enough.

Pranesh seemed to be in much bigger trouble than Carlsen, but kept plenty of time on his clock relative to Grischuk, and won on the board with a 36-second time advantage to boot.

Carlsen wasn't suffering as badly during his game against Arjun, but a win was presumably the last thing on his mind. But once Arjun gave Carlsen's king a path to the queenside, things changed, and Carlsen played his 117th and final move after 4:57.9 of his five minutes had elapsed, delivering checkmate.

Magnus Carlsen ground a win out of nowhere against Arjun Erigaisi, but it's Pranesh who takes #TitledTuesday on tiebreaks! https://t.co/CLUW6g3S0D pic.twitter.com/E4qpS3opKh

— chess24 (@chess24com) November 25, 2025

Unfortunately for Carlsen, and as he noted with disappointment in the postgame, tiebreaks were not in his favor. His dominating overall results in the split should help reduce the blow.

November 25 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings.)

Prizes: Pranesh $1,000, Carlsen $750, Lazavik $350, Sarana $250, Artemiev $150, GM Pranav Venkatesh $100, IM Karina Ambartsumova $100 women's prize. Streamers' prizes to be announced on the events page.

Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly tournament for titled players. It begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time.