Abdusattorov Leads Arjun, Maghsoodloo After UzChess Masters Round 5

GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov leads his home supertournament, the 2025 UzChess Cup Masters, on 4/5 after defeating GMs Shamsiddin Vokhidov, Richard Rapport, and Aravindh Chithambaram. He's trailed by half a point by GM Arjun Erigaisi and also GM Parham Maghsoodloo, who took down co-leader GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in a dramatic round-five game. 

Round six starts Tuesday, June 24, at 6 a.m. ET / 12:00 CEST / 3:30 p.m. IST.

This is the second edition of the UzChess Cup, with the first won by Nodirbek Yakubboev in 2024. The event, taking place in the Panarams Tashkent Hotel in the capital of Uzbekistan, once again features three 10-player round-robins: a Masters, Challengers (with GM Vasyl Ivanchuk the top seed), and Futures. 

While the Masters was strong in 2024, Abdusattorov was the only top-10 player, but this year he's joined by Arjun, Praggnanandhaa, and GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, as well as Aravindh, who started the event as world number-11. That's meant that each round has shaken up the world rankings. The current standings, after crossing the halfway mark, are as follows:

UzChess Masters Standings After Round 5

The event began explosively, when the defending champion Yakubboev found himself lost against Arjun after their game had barely begun. It was a triumph for the provocative Pirc Defense when 11.Qxb7? left Yakubboev busted.

Arjun then went on to make three draws before outplaying Vokhidov in round five to put himself half a point behind the leader. 

In the same first round Abdusattorov eased to a win over his Uzbek teammate Vokhidov, while another star of the 2022 Olympiad-winning team, 19-year-old GM Javokhir Sindarov, took down Nepomniachtchi.

The game saw the two-time world championship challenger correctly sacrifice an exchange but lose his way in the follow-up, while Sindarov handled huge complications well despite both players being in time trouble. 25...Nxc3! was a sharp pawn grab, and there was just one chance for Nepomniachtchi in what followed.

It's been a tough tournament for Nepomniachtchi so far, with draws in his remaining four games leaving his top-10 status hanging by a thread.

Praggnanandhaa joined the leaders in round two with a win over Vokhidov of which he commented, "I wouldn’t say I crushed him, but this is what I was hoping for out of the opening, to get some fight, and I think I got it." The point of no return came after 18...g6?! 19.Bxh6, when Black had to play 19...Qh4!. After 19...gxh5? 20.g5! Praggnanandhaa said "it should just be lost," which he went on to prove.

Praggnanandhaa's second win, over Sindarov in round four, was much murkier, with the Indian star confessing of the opening stages, "I was not sure what was going on, to be honest."

He was happy to find "a nice idea" of transferring his queen from a3 to c1 (teasing Sindarov with a draw by repetition in the meantime), and then pushing his b-pawn, which worked to perfection, even if Praggnanandhaa regretted allowing some counterplay.

For a second time in the tournament, that took Praggnanandhaa above World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju into the world number-five spot, but as he commented:

It doesn’t matter. I was probably world number-five the day before yesterday, and world number-seven yesterday, so it doesn’t really matter. We’re all strong players and these one or two points don’t really matter.

Praggnanandhaa was right, of course, as the next round would show, since after a dramatic second win in a row for Maghsoodloo, he was knocked back to the world number-seven spot.

Maghsoodloo's win in round five was well-deserved after a game in which he was the one pushing, but Praggnanandhaa came agonizingly close to rescuing a lost position. With both players down to around a minute on the clock all he needed to find was one more precise move.

63...Bf1! and the white h-pawn is doomed, with Black also able to stop the b-pawn. After 63...Kh5?, though, Maghsoodloo had the resource Ne5-g4-f2 to defend that pawn and win the game. 

Maghsoodloo wins a 2nd game in a row to move up to 2nd place with Arjun, behind Abdusattorov — a tough 5+ hour loss for Praggnanandhaa, who was one move away from survival! https://t.co/zUKF27EfEX pic.twitter.com/iNssoN5CZF

— chess24 (@chess24com) June 23, 2025

Praggnanandhaa had started the day in the joint lead with Abdusattorov, but has now fallen a point behind. After his win in round one, the Uzbek number-one survived a dicey position against Sindarov in round two before scoring a memorable win over GM Richard Rapport in round three. The finish of the bishop vs. knight endgame was beautiful! 

After a second win in three rounds, Abdusattorov commented: "In closed supertournaments it’s very important to score a victory and also not to lose a game, as +3 or +4 generally is enough to win this tournament, so I’m really happy."

A convincing win in round five did in fact move Abdusattorov up to +3, and made him favorite to win the $20,000 top prize and, potentially, 26.63 FIDE Circuit points for sole first, which would be the second highest score this year after GM Magnus Carlsen's 28.78 for first place in Norway Chess. 

2025 FIDE Circuit Standings, June 24, 2025

As you can see, winning the Circuit is a very real path to the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament for a number of players in Tashkent, with Abdusattorov able to move up to second place with a win.

Aravindh, who currently holds second place, is the player Abdusattorov beat in round five, and has been having a rollercoaster June. After winning the Stepan Avagyan Memorial on June 6 he'd climbed to world number-nine, but he's now lost 21.9 points in 10 days, including nine points in a single game in Germany, to drop to world number-20.

There are still four rounds to go in Tashkent, however, so there's everything to play for!

The UzChess Masters is the main event of the 2025 UzChess Cup, taking place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on June 19-27. The 10 players compete in a single round-robin for a $20,000 top prize. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves then 30 minutes to the end of the game, with a 30-second increment from move one.