D Gukesh was devastated after his tie-breaker defeat to R Praggnanandhaa at the Tata Chess Masters, in Wijk aan Zee.

The teenager became the first Indian after Viswanathan Anand to win the title. Anand won it thrice (2003, 2004 and 2006) individually when it was called the Corus Chess Tournament,

In the tie-breaker between two Chennai players played in the blitz format, Pragg was the underdog because of exhaustion.

In the second game, Gukesh had a fine position but was gradually outplayed. In the third game, the decider, Praggnanandhaa was again on the defensive with his white pieces but then found some nice moves and Gukesh got overambitious in a position that would have been a draw otherwise.

The World Champion D Gukesh faced a tough contest against Grandmaster R Pragnanandhaa in the Tata Steel Masters 2025 Chess final held at Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. The event was between two Indian stars, which ended with same points after 13 rounds. Pragnanandhaa needed a draw to clinch the title, which he successfully did.

Despite the loss, Praggnanandhaa will play tie-break games of shorter duration against Gukesh after the two ended with identical 8.5 points each. The other contender Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan was denied the full point by P Harikrishna, who played a hard fought draw.

Gukesh Dommaraju ascended to World No. 3 after drawing against reigning champion Wei Yi at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2025. Rameshbabu Praggnanan

For Gukesh, this was the second year running when he tied for first position and lost the tiebreaker. In the previous edition last year, Gukesh had lost to Chinese Wei Yi

After losses in Round 13, D Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa played out a tie-breaker in the 2025 Tata Steel Chess Masters, with the former coming good in sudden-death to win.