R Praggnanandhaa Let's D Gukesh Off the Hook on a Day of Draws in Third Round.
Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa narrowly missed becoming a joint leader at the Superbet Classic chess tournament after drawing with fellow Indian player D Gukesh in the third round.
Bucharest (Romania), Jun 29 (PTI) - Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa missed the chance to become a joint leader at the Superbet Classic chess tournament after drawing against compatriot D Gukesh in the third round.
After losing to Gukesh in the Candidates tournament in April, Praggnanandhaa had an opportunity to even the score but couldn’t capitalize after Gukesh made an error in a drawn endgame. The Catalan opening saw Gukesh sacrifice a pawn early, with Praggnanandhaa countering on the Queen side. Gukesh regained the pawn with a Knight against Praggnanandhaa’s slightly inferior Bishop. As the middle game complexities were resolved, Gukesh gave up a pawn, leading to a Queen and rook endgame that should have been a straightforward draw. However, a blunder on his 53rd move led to a forced liquidation into a King and pawns endgame. Praggnanandhaa could have found a winning move to become a joint leader, but luck favored Gukesh, resulting in a draw a few moves later.
For the first time in three days, all five games in the ten-player double round-robin tournament ended in draws. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave came close to a win against his French teammate Alireza Firouzja.
In a Berlin defense game, Firouzja achieved a balanced position easily as Black. However, a late error in the queenless middle game allowed Vachier-Lagrave to seize the initiative, but he missed the win. With all games ending in draws, the lead positions remained unchanged. Gukesh continued to share the lead with Fabiano Caruana of the United States, who drew a keenly contested game against Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan.
With both leaders on two points, Vachier-Lagrave, Praggnanandhaa, Alireza, Wesley So, Anish Giri, and Ian Nepomniachtchi are tied for third place with 1.5 points each.
Another half point behind are Abdusattorov and Bogdan Daniel, with six rounds remaining in the USD 350,000 prize money tournament.
Dutchman Anish Giri, on his 30th birthday, played out an easy draw against Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi. This was also the first game to end on the day. Deac Bogdan-Daniel of Romania played out his second draw, holding off a slightly worse endgame against Wesley So of the United States for more than a couple of hours.
Round 3 Results:
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