Chennai Grand Masters 2025, Round 5: Pranav forces draw against Erigaisi; Keymer retains one-point lead

Top seed Arjun Erigaisi dropped points for the second round running in the Chennai Grand Masters as a battling Pranav V claimed a praiseworthy draw in their fifth-round match-up here on Monday.

The 18-year-old Pranav, the lowest-rated player in the Masters field, beat the odds to hold Indian No. 1 Erigaisi, to follow upon his draw against second seed Anish Giri on Sunday.

The draw in the Erigaisi-Pranav encounter allowed Vincent Keymer to retain his one-point lead atop the standings. The German GM failed to budge a resilient Vidit Gujrathi with black pieces in the fifth round, as he settled for a draw for the second consecutive game to move to four points.

Erigaisi and Keymer will face off on Tuesday in a potentially title-determining sixth-round clash, where the latter will wield the white pieces.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands’ Giri continued his disappointing run as he registered his fifth draw on the trot in the tournament, against Indian GM Karthikeyan Murali, who manufactured a stalemate against his higher-rated opponent.

Nihal Sarin followed up his upset win in the fourth round over Erigaisi with a straightforward draw against American GM Awonder Liang.

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The only decisive game of the round saw Dutch GM Jorden van Foreest pip the USA’s Ray Robson in a nervy encounter, which lasted nearly four-and-a-half hours.

In the only all-Indian clash in the main draw for the day, Pranav sprang a surprise on the higher-rated Erigaisi early on.

The reigning world junior champion deviated from expected lines by playing the classical-central variation of the Ruy Lopez opening with his black pieces.

“I was preparing a lot for d4. I did not have a lot of time to prepare for e4. This line, which I played today, I had originally planned for Anish Giri a few days back. I thought it would be a good plan against Arjun, too,” said Pranav.

Erigaisi, after expending a bit of his time, regrouped as he neutralised the pressure and inched his way into gaining control of the game.

The 21-year-old saw his position improve further after trading queens and rooks by the 35th move as the board simplified.

But, with a piece parity in place in the endgame, Pranav countered Erigaisi’s double knight combination with his knight-bishop pair to grind out half a point, withstanding intense pressure from his opponent.

In the Challengers section, R. Vaishali suffered her third consecutive defeat. On Monday, the 24-year-old GM was outplayed by Harshavardhan G B, the only International Master in the playing field.

GM Abhimanyu Puranik continued to lead the proceedings in the Challengers category after he bettered D. Harika in the fifth round for his fourth win of the event.