Chennai Grand Masters 2025, Round 3: Vincent Keymer extends winning run; Erigaisi pips Robson

Germany’s Vincent Keymer made it a hat-trick of wins at the Chennai Grand Masters 2025, as he outplayed India’s Karthikeyan Murali in under three hours in the third round here on Saturday.

Arjun Erigaisi, the top seed, produced a clinical performance to beat the USA’s Ray Robson to move to 2.5 points and keep himself in sight of Keymer in the standings.

In the only all-Indian clash in the main draw on Saturday, Vidit Gujrathi edged out Nihal Sarin in an exciting encounter, while American GM Awonder Liang claimed his first win of the tournament as he bettered the Netherlands’ Jorden van Foreest.

The man of the day, though, was Keymer. The 20-year-old gained early ascendancy with the white pieces following a Sicilian Defence Opening, as he castled to the long-side before launching an attack down the h-flank with 12.h4.

Keymer later admitted that it was an intuitive move and was made in preparation for settling up an outpost for his queen later on.

“It just came to my mind. I thought that maybe it’s something I had seen, but it is a very dark memory, if there was any. The idea is that I generally would like to go Queen to g3 at some point,” said Keymer

With his kingside exposed and the clock ticking down on him, Karthikeyan soon resigned as Keymer secured full points and maintained his lead atop the standings.

Like Keymer, Erigaisi too banked on time as a weapon as he weathered down Robson’s challenge. The Indian GM had a 30-minute edge on the clock as the match headed into the endgame.

With a rook battery in position in the d-file, Erigaisi exerted pressure down the middle, attacking black’s d6 pawn. A queen exchange followed as Erigaisi triggered a position simplification to extend his advantage, which was soon driven home into a win.

For Gujrathi, it was third time lucky as he finished on the winning side after coming close in the first two rounds.

The 30-year-old, playing with black pieces, pounced on an endgame misstep from Sarin to gain control and soon wrung out a morale-boosting win.

Meanwhile, V. Pranav produced a commendable performance as he held higher-rated Anish Giri to a draw with black pieces.

In the challengers section, Abhimanyu Puranik and M Pranesh are in a joint lead, after they claimed third-round wins against Harshavardhan G B and P Iniyan, respectively.