News
Abdusattorov Catches Maghsoodloo As Prague Masters Sees Blunders, Turnarounds
Abdusattorov, now in shared first place. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague International Chess Festival.

Abdusattorov Catches Maghsoodloo As Prague Masters Sees Blunders, Turnarounds

PeterDoggers
| 15 | Chess Event Coverage

GM David Navara was winning for one move, but eventually GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov scored the full point in their game and now shares the lead at the Prague Masters after today's third round. The Uzbek grandmaster caught GM Parham Maghsoodloo, who drew his game with GM Vincent Keymer.

GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu was dominating his game against GM Richard Rapport and seemed certain of a win, but then blunderded twice and suffered a second consecutive loss instead—a dramatic turn of events after his 47-game unbeaten streak.

After starting with two losses, GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen scored his first win with the black pieces against GM Mateusz Bartel. The game GM Gukesh Dommaraju vs. GM Vidit Gujrathi ended in a draw.

Day four starts on Friday at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 7:30 p.m. IST.

Prague Masters | Round 3 Results

Prague Masters | Round 3 Results

After the second day of play, Maghsoodloo said that he actually played pretty good chess in Wijk aan Zee, better than his final result of 4.5/13 reflected. A combination of wrong decisions at critical moments and a large dose of bad luck resulted in a bad tournament. So far, Praggnanandhaa is finding himself in a similar position in Prague.

Especially today, he was playing nothing less than a fantastic game, beautifully outplaying Rapport from the white side of a 5.h3 King's Indian. Black's play on the queenside was too slow, and by move 23 Pragg had a winning attack which he executed almost perfectly.

Praggnanandhaa Prague 2024
Tough times for Praggnanandhaa in Prague. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague International Chess Festival.

He missed one little detail, and the disappointment of spoiling the win led to a second mistake. We've all been there... including this author countless times.

Rapport Prague 2024
Rapport's win was fortunate, but he grabbed his chance beautifully with that 32...Be6 move. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague International Chess Festival.

Our Game of the Day was another up-and-down affair, but in this case the player who built up a winning advantage, Abdusattorov, ended up winning after all.

In what was only the second game between these two players (the first was in Belgrade in 2022), White went for an early queenside expansion with b4 and a4. Navara responded with a push in the center (12...d5) that created an isolated queen's pawn for his opponent, but White's activity was more important.

Abdusattorov, however, missed some chances to crash through on f7 and, when he finally took that pawn, the position had become rather messy. In fact, for one move, Navara was winning, but with 14 minutes left on the clock he failed to find the correct way. It could serve as a training task: why is 28...Rxf7 (played by Navara) wrong and what should you do instead? (See GM Rafael Leitao's notes for the solution.)

GM Rafael Leitao GotD

David Navara Prague 2024
Navara was briefly winning but missed his chance. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague International Chess Festival.

The all-Indian clash between the two Candidates Gukesh and Vidit was quite interesting as well. "Gukesh played really well," Vidit said in the live broadcast. "After the opening part, he put a lot of pressure and I was on the defending side clearly."

Out of an Anti-Berlin, Gukesh got a structural edge with an open a-file, but with his move 11.Nh4 he hinted at the option for playing f2-f4 and putting pressure on the kingside as well. Vidit noted that he played several moves out of desperation, but as it turned out, the engine approved of his play.

The only clear miscalculation happened on move 17, so in hindsight, Gukesh should definitely have played f4 there. As it went, Vidit escaped in a slightly worse endgame where he defended well.

Vidit Prague 2024
Vidit was under pressure but handled it well. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague International Chess Festival.

At the end of the day, Nguyen emerged as the winner in his game with Bartel, which had looked interesting but drawish for most of the time. It was deep in the rook endgame where Bartel, whose king was fighting against a trio of passers, missed a draw:

Nguyen Prague 2024
A cheerful handshake before the game between Nguyen and Bartel. Photo: Petr Vrabec/Prague International Chess Festival.

Prague Masters | Round 3 Standings

Prague Masters | Round 3 Standings

In the Challengers tournament, GM-elect Vaishali Rameshbabu scored her first win, and so did GM Abhimanyu Mishra.

Prague Challengers | Round 3 Results

Prague Challengers | Round 3 Results

Prague Challengers | Round 3 Standings

Prague Challengers | Round 3 Standings


The 2024 Prague Chess Festival takes place February 27-March 7 at the Don Giovanni Hotel in Prague, Czech Republic. The format is a single round-robin. The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting on move one.

How to watch?
You can watch the Prague Chess Festival on YouTube. The games can also be followed from our Events Page.

The live broadcast hosted by IM Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.


Previous posts:

PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.

Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.

Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.

As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!


Company Contact and News Accreditation: 

Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097

More from PeterDoggers
Giri's Alaskan Knights Impress On 2024 Global Chess League Opening Day

Giri's Alaskan Knights Impress On 2024 Global Chess League Opening Day

Global Chess League: All You Need To Know

Global Chess League: All You Need To Know