Praggnanandhaa Takes Joint Lead at Sinquefield Cup After Defeating Firouzja
Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa scored a decisive victory over French player Alireza Firouzja in the seventh round of the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, USA. The win propels the young Indian star into a joint lead with Fabiano Caruana in the prestigious Grand Chess Tour event. Praggnanandhaa outclassed his opponent in just 27 moves, marking his second victory in the tournament and continuing his strong performance against the world's top players, while fellow Indian D Gukesh suffered a loss.
Unpacked:
The Sinquefield Cup is an annual invitational chess tournament held in St. Louis, featuring ten of the world’s top grandmasters in a closed, single round-robin format. It is part of the Grand Chess Tour and is renowned for its strong field, classical time controls, and significant prize pool, making it one of the most prestigious events on the chess calendar.
The Sinquefield Cup is a single round-robin event where each player faces every other participant once. If players are tied for first place, tiebreaks such as head-to-head score, total wins, and Sonneborn-Berger are applied. In the Grand Chess Tour, ties for first can also lead to rapid or blitz playoffs, and an Armageddon game if needed, to determine the winner.
Notable participants in the 2025 Sinquefield Cup include Indian Grandmasters R Praggnanandhaa and D Gukesh, American GM Fabiano Caruana, reigning champion Alireza Firouzja from France, Levon Aronian, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, among others. The event consistently features many of the world’s highest-ranked players.
Praggnanandhaa’s victory over Firouzja is significant because Firouzja is a former Sinquefield Cup champion and one of the top-ranked players globally. Winning convincingly in just 27 moves demonstrates Praggnanandhaa’s strong form and positions him as a leading contender in the tournament, marking an important milestone in his career.