Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands): Two Indian Grandmasters, Dommaraju Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi played out a draw in the ninth round of the ongoing Tata Steel Masters chess tournament here on Tuesday.
Gujrathi, who hails from Nashik is yet to show his A game as he has drawn eight games in nine rounds after his first six fixtures resulted in draws. But, then an exemplary performance to beat Iranian GM Alireza Firouzja raised a ray of hope.
Yet, he played out a draw in the eighth round. And this has left him half a point behind the leaders' group.
With this draw, Gukesh added another half points to his tally and leads the points table along with Uzbekistan's GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Dutchman GM Anish Giri and India's GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa with 5.5 pts after round nine. Vidit is accompanied by Chinese GM Wei Yi, and Iranian GM Alireza Firouzja with 5 points.
On the other hand, GMs Abdusattorov and Praggnanandhaa won their white games. For the first time in this competition, the 18-year-old achieved the top spot in the leaderboard. He defeated GM Ju Wenjun from an interesting line of the Two Knights. "I really wanted to win today," he later explained in an interview with Chess.com.
In a variation that is hundreds of years old, it is quite an achievement to play a novelty on move 10, but Pragg managed. Ju soon played slightly inaccurately, and with that, her typical compensation in this line started to disappear. When the g-file got opened, Praggnanandhaa could quickly set up an attack, also thanks to his bishop on the long diagonal.
The 18-year-old defeated China's Liren with the black pieces at the 2024 Tata Steel Chess Tournament last week and surpassed the legendary Viswanathan Anand to take the number one spot.
Round 9 Standings: 1st= Abdusattorov, Giri, Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa 5.5pts 5th= Wei Yi, Vidit, Firouzja 5pts 8th Nepomniachtchi 4.5pts 9th= Ding Liren, Warmerdam 4pts 11th= Maghsoodloo, Ju Wenjun, Donchenko 3.5pts 14th Van Foreest 3pts
Round 10: 24th January 2024. Firouzja-Giri, Nepomniachtchi-Ding Liren, Van Foreest-Wei Yi, Warmerdam-Abdusattorov, Ju-Maghsoodloo, Vidit-Praggnanandhaa, Donchenko-Gukesh.
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