Abdusattorov Up To World #5 As Praggnanandhaa, Navara Also Win
Nineteen-year-old GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov overtook GMs Alireza Firouzja and Ian Nepomniachtchi to enter the world top-five after a smooth win over GM Mateusz Bartel in round five of the Prague Masters. There were huge turnarounds elsewhere, with GM Gukesh Dommaraju losing a winning position to GM David Navara, GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu beating fellow candidate GM Vidit Gujrathi, and GM Richard Rapport twice letting GM Parham Maghsoodloo off the hook.
Round six starts after the rest day on Monday at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 7:30 p.m. IST.
After the calm of round four, we got a huge storm in round five, with the players trading blows on the eve of the only rest day. All five games could have ended decisively, but in the end we got "only" three wins, all of which shook up the live rating list.
Prague Masters | Round 5 Results
It's become something of a running joke recently that the crazy battle to be the Indian number-one is being won by... Uzbekistan's Abdusattorov. By now he's left that race behind, however, and with three wins in Prague he's gained 11.1 rating points to barge his way into the world top-five, with World Champion Ding Liren's fourth spot less than a point away.
The latest win, over Bartel, was perhaps the smoothest yet, with Abdusattorov commenting: "It was very good for me from the opening—a very, very clean game."
Abdusattorov's queen soon got to gobble pawns on the queenside—first on a2, then b2, then finally, with decisive effect, c2. The 2021 world rapid champion may not be a candidate in 2024, but he looks sure to challenge for the main title in the years to come.
Two candidates did clash on Saturday, with Praggnanandhaa beating Vidit in his first win since a 47-game unbeaten streak was rudely interrupted by two losses in a row.
The 18-year-old explained that the second loss, to Rapport, hadn't affected him too badly: "I outplayed him the whole game, and I was calculating really well. I just blanked out for five minutes, and then the game was over. It doesn’t happen often, so I can’t be too worried about it!"
Praggnanandhaa got back on track in a game where Vidit had shown great defensive resourcefulness to reach a drawn position—only to suddenly allow his opponent to whip up a deadly mating attack. That's our Game of the Day, with analysis from GM Rafael Leitao below.
That saw Praggnanandhaa return to 50 percent. He was asked afterward if he was concerned by the developing story that he's among the players who so far haven't received a visa to travel to Toronto for the Candidates Tournament in one month's time: "Not really! It’s kind of the same case for everyone."
The third Indian candidate, Gukesh, had a chance to once more become the Indian number-one on the live rating list, and he looked well on course when he won the opening battle against Navara. A couple of rushed moves, however, and the win had slipped away before Gukesh failed to pull the emergency brake and allowed 12-time Czech Champion Navara to snatch his first win of this year's event in his home city.
There were two draws, an outcome that had seemed unlikely when Rapport spotted a nice tactical sequence against Maghsoodloo. It looked to be game-over, but the Iranian fought his way back into the game, next was lost again, and then finally did escape—in 97 moves.
That left Keymer vs. Nguyen, which was as close as we got to a quiet draw, though it was anything but! Keymer's coach, GM Peter Leko, joined the commentary team for the day and revealed his one real contribution.
Leko on his student Keymer: "You see that big bottle of water there — this is my biggest contribution to this game. I just bought it!" pic.twitter.com/H7pHWdaWaG
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 2, 2024
He predicted a tough game given the Czech player is a strong opening specialist and was soon singing the praises of Black's position. A tactical flurry in the middlegame, however, saw Keymer emerge with an extra pawn and, it seemed, chances to torture his opponent. However, Nguyen was more than up to the task and found some study-like precision in the final stages. The last move. 48...Rxf4!, was a nice touch.
That means that going into the rest day, Abdusattorov is out in sole first place, while Maghsoodloo is sole second, and Rapport sole third. The candidates are all further back in what they are perhaps treating as a warm-up event.
Prague Masters | Round 5 Standings
In the Prague Challengers, meanwhile, there wasn't a single draw in round five.
Prague Challengers | Round 5 Results
GM Anton Korobov needed 123 moves to overcome heroic resistance from GM Abhimanyu Mishra, but he got there in the end to retain the lead on 4/5, where he's joined by Turkish teenager IM Ediz Gurel, who is well on course to become a grandmaster by the end of the event. Perhaps the most exciting game was GM-elect Vaishali Rameshbabu's attempt to win a third game in a row. That looked like a strong possibility after she went for a correct exchange sacrifice against GM Erwin l'Ami...
VAISHALI SACS THE EXCHANGE!!!! 🤯https://t.co/ZEWrhwa5fi#chess #womeninchess https://t.co/ly5QCI3EEj pic.twitter.com/82jshG5dGF
— Women's Chess Coverage (@OnTheQueenside) March 2, 2024
...but in the end L'Ami found enough tricks of his own to survive and take over.
Prague Challengers | Round 5 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.
The live broadcast hosted by IM Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.
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Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
