This one's my own read of the games, not reporting on someone else's article. I'm not a titled player myself, I lean on Stockfish to help me see what actually happened over the board, and I'll flag it clearly whenever a piece is mine like this.
The QUANTBOX Chennai Grand Masters 2026 ran across seven rounds at the Westin, an eight-player round robin averaging 2727, one of the strongest closed events of the year. GM Alireza Firouzja won it outright on 4.5/7, and he did it without losing a single game.
Firouzja's run had one proper fight in it. He beat Pranesh in round one, then survived a wild round two against Gukesh, letting a clean winning advantage slip not once but twice, missing Ra1 and later Rc7, before Gukesh handed the game straight back with his own mistakes and Firouzja closed it out. Every other game after that was a clean, drama-free draw, five in a row, enough to see the title home unbeaten without needing to win another game.
The real story of this tournament sits at the bottom of the table. Gukesh, who won the very first Chennai Grand Masters back in 2023, finished dead last this time on 2/7, without a single win. What stands out is how it happened: in all three of his losses, the engine flagged a moment where he had a genuine chance to hold, and let it go. Twice against Firouzja in round two. Once against Erigaisi in round five. And in round six against Pranesh, three separate times in the same game, missing Nc6, then d3, then Rh8, before finally losing.
Erigaisi and Andreikin shared second on 4 points, with Abdusattorov, Pranesh and Nihal Sarin bunched on 3.5. Niemann finished seventh on 3, his own round-seven escape against Gukesh a fitting bookend, a queen sacrifice down the wrong path that fizzled into a forced draw by repetition rather than the mating attack Gukesh needed.
Full standings, pairings and every game are on Chess-Results, with round-by-round coverage from Chess.com.
Eight positions from across the event, mostly from Gukesh's collapse, are in the free puzzle book. Can you find the moves he missed? Download it here.