Prague Chess Masters: Praggnanandhaa, Aravindh Chithambaram safe attracts, keep in joint lead after six rounds

Grandmasters R Praggnanandhaa and Aravindh Chithambaram continued to stay in joint lead after drawing their sixth-round video games within the Prague Masters Chess match.

Praggnanandhaa was held to a draw by Sam Shankland of america, whereas Aravindh break up the purpose with Quang Leim Le of Vietnam to be on 4 factors out of a doable six, on a day when all of the video games have been drawn for the primary time within the match.

Praggnanandhaa and Aravindh stay in joint lead

Praggnanandhaa and Aravindh continued to be adopted by high seed Wei Yi of China, Anish Giri of Holland, Vincent Keymer of Germany and Quang Leim, all of whom are on three factors apiece.

One other half-point behind are the Czech duo of Nguyen Thai Dai Van and David Navara, Gurel Ediz of Turkey and Shankland.

With three extra rounds to return, Praggnanandhaa holds the sting over Aravindh as he’s set to play the subsequent two video games with white items. Aravindh, alternatively, has just one recreation with white left.

The seventh spherical will likely be essential for Praggnanandhaa as he takes on Wei Yi, whereas Aravindh will meet Anish, who has drawn all his video games thus far.

Praggnanandhaa was beneath strain for a while within the center recreation in opposition to his American opponent, who performed white. The opening featured a daily Italian recreation and Shankland threw open the place with a knight sacrifice on the king facet.

Quickly after, Praggnanandhaa needed to half with one in every of his rooks for a minor piece, and what resulted was a really advanced place.

Navigating between higher and equal thereon, the Indian allowed Shankland to go for a pressured repetition and the sport was drawn after 43 strikes.

Taking part in white, Aravindh confronted the Queen’s gambit declined, and had his forces across the centre proper from the phrase go.

Nevertheless, as the sport progressed, Quang Leim remained impregnable, and by the nineteenth transfer itself the gamers had exchanged as many as three minor items and two pawns.

The pawn construction took a small flip when Aravindh determined to half together with his final bishop for a knight however black had nothing to fret about. The gamers quickly arrived at a rook-and-pawns endgame the place the draw was a simply end result after 32 strikes.

Divya Deshmukh suffers one other defeat in Challengers spherical

Within the Challengers part, the fortunes of Divya Deshmukh didn’t change as she suffered one other defeat and was pushed to the only final spot amongst 10 gamers. Vaclav Finel defeated Divya in a rook-and-minor-piece endgame leaving the Indian on 1.5 factors.

Jonas Buhl Bjerre of Denmark regained the joint lead by beating Marc’Andria Maurizzi of France. The Dane shares the highest spot with Nodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan.