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Journalism of Courage
It took a herculean effort from Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alireza Firouzja to win on-demand in their respective last classical round games to enforce a tiebreak with R. Praggnanandhaa, but the Indian showed tremendous resoluteness to eventually win the three-way tiebreaker. He beat MVL in the final blitz tiebreak to clinch the second leg of the Grand Chess Tour (GCT) — the Superbet Chess Classic Romania 2025 — on Friday night.
Praggnanandhaa, who was leading by half a point over MVL and Firouzja, drew his last round game against the USA’s Levon Aronian, which allowed the French duo to catch up with him. The three-way tiebreak saw all three players pit against each other. The first two blitz matches — between Pragg and Firouzja and MVL and Firouzja — were drawn before the Indian got the better of MVL in the final blitz game.
The tiebreak format, which is result-oriented with shorter time controls and Armageddon if necessary, was praised by American Grandmaster Hans Niemann. “GCT has a very creative Armageddon tiebreak format. An intriguing idea that could be used by other competitions. Best wishes to Pragg. Niemann wrote on X.
Since the tiebreak format had already been used in earlier tournaments, it can be argued whether or not it was innovative. Niemann’s statement, though, might be an indication of his comment to FIDE. This is particularly in light of Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi’s contentious agreement to split the World Blitz Title at the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championship in New York on Wall Street.
Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi agreed to share the title after the final ended in a tie, as the decision came after three sudden-death games failed to produce a winner.
After that, Niemann went on an explosive rant on social media, lashing out at FIDE, the global governing body of chess, for allowing the two players to share the prestigious title.
“The chess world is officially a joke. THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DONE IN HISTORY. I can’t believe that the official body of chess is being controlled by a singular player FOR THE 2ND TIME THIS WEEK. THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE WORLD CHAMPION! (sic)” Niemann posted on his X handle.
