Grand Chess Tour: Praggnaandhaa ends rapid section as joint leader

Indian Grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa received three matches in a row on the ultimate day to tie for first place with Firouzja Alireza of France on 12 factors because the speedy part of the Croatian leg of the Grand Chess Tour resulted in Zagreb.

Having fallen a little bit behind after the second day, Praggnanandhaa reserved his finest for the final three rounds and defeated Ivan Saric of Croatia, Deac Bogdan-Daniel of Romania and Anish Giri of the Netherlands to lastly meet up with Alireza.

The opposite Frenchman, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan remained inside placing distance of the 2 leaders with a nice end within the speedy part to achieve 11 factors, whereas world champion D. Gukesh of India and Vincent Keymer of Germany are proper on their toes with 10 factors every.

With 18 rounds within the blitz part nonetheless to be performed, Giri is on eight factors and is a full level forward of Deac and Jorden van Foreest of the Netherlands whereas Saric stands final with simply two factors in his bag.

For Praggnanandhaa, issues began transferring proper after the opening in opposition to Saric, who has been struggling within the occasion. The Caro-Kann defence gave the Indian an lively place proper from the start, and although it took a very long time to transform, Praggnanandhaa was all the time in command.

Within the second sport, Praggnanandhaa crashed by means of the defences of Deac out of a Petroff defence, and by transfer 15, the writing was already on the wall. The Romanian misplaced a bit quickly and by no means recovered.

Within the ultimate sport of the day, Praggnanandhaa was on hearth in opposition to typically reliable Anish Giri as he received a pawn out of a Catalan opening after which ended the sport effectively with nice tactical manoeuvres. The sport resulted in a mere 34 strikes.

For Gukesh, this turned out to be a contrasting day in comparison with Praggnanandhaa, because the youngest ever world champion may solely draw all of the three video games to fall behind a little bit. Abdusattorov, Keymer and Alireza all cut up factors with Gukesh.

Standings after Spherical 9 Fast

1-2: Firouzja Alireza (Fra), R Praggnanandhaa (Ind) 12 every; 3-4: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb) 11 every; 5-6: D Gukesh (Ind), Vincednt Keymer (Ger) 10 every; 7: Anish Giri (Ned, 8); 8-9. Deac Bogdan-Daniel (Rou), Jorden van Foreest (Ned) 7 every; 10. Ivan Saric (Cro, 2).