Abdusattorov Maintains Lead Despite Losing To Praggnanandhaa

In a remarkable leaderboard twist, GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov kept his half-point lead at the Prague Masters despite losing to GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu on Monday. This was possible because runner-up GM Parham Maghsoodloo suffered his first loss of the tournament, to GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen.

In what was another bloody round, GM Mateusz Bartel won his first game, at the expense of GM Gukesh Dommaraju, while GM Vidit Gujrathi lost after blundering in a winning position against GM Vincent Keymer. Only GM David Navara vs. GM Richard Rapport ended in a draw.

Round seven starts on Tuesday at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 7:30 p.m. IST.

Prague Masters | Round 6 Results

With three players trailing Abdusattorov by half a point and three others another half point behind, the Prague Masters is far from decided yet. The Uzbek GM could have created a 1.5-point gap to the runner-up but, at the same time, he cannot complain about being in sole first place after today.

His game with Praggnanandhaa started as a 3...a6 4.Ba4 Nge7 Ruy Lopez and looked quite normal until Abdusattorov went for two moves that weakened his kingside: g2-g3 and later f2-f4. Bartel, who joined the broadcast, didn't like this. Although it might not have been all that bad, eventually it did allow a tactic that decided the game.

Black's 36...Rxd6! was a typical example of an obvious trick that doesn't seem to work but then works after all. Pragg had looked just a little bit deeper. "I quickly spotted it," he said. "Everything is forced."

GM Rafael Leitao looked at this key game of the round:

The intrigue regarding the standings included Maghsoodloo's missed chance to take over the lead. Instead, the Iranian grandmaster suffered his first loss in the tournament. It was also Nguyen's best game so far, a fine win somewhat atypical for him.

The Czech GM said it was "definitely one of the very sweet wins" of his career, as he explained: "I am normally known for positional grinding wins and today it was in a completely different style."

Some of the lines are based on Nguyen's analysis in the broadcast, which revealed that he had seen some beautiful variations and that his impersonation of an attacking player was quite convincing!

After starting with four straight draws, Vidit's tournament suddenly took a wrong turn with two consecutive losses. After Pragg took him down, he was ready to bounce back and outplayed Keymer, only to spoil it all with an inexcusable blunder. With almost sixteen minutes on the clock, the Indian GM just completely forgot about his opponent's main threat in the position, apparently. The horror!

Bartel hadn't been having a great tournament, but he scored his first win today. He managed to draw some positive vibes from earlier tournaments, saying: "I was not thinking that much about chess during the game, I was thinking about life. I came to the conclusion that Iron Maiden was, after all, right."

He then went on to explain that he was talking about the band's song The Number of the Beast, and that he had twice won a good game in round six of two different tournaments in Dortmund. And indeed, today he won another excellent game in round six, so that makes three sixes and 666 is what Iron Maiden is singing about... 

Even the only draw of the round was too interesting not to include here. Or maybe that was because the King's Indian is an old love of this author, even though I don't play it myself anymore. In any case, Rapport's tactic that gave him the better chances was one to remember.

Prague Masters | Round 6 Standings

Also in the Prague Challengers, just one game ended in a draw, after there hadn't been a single draw in round five. The Turkish teenager IM Ediz Gurel is now the sole leader with three rounds to go.

Prague Challengers | Round 6 Results

Prague Challengers | Round 6 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.

Previous posts:

• Abdusattorov Up To World #5 As Praggnanandhaa, Navara Also Win
• White Presses, Black Holds: All Draws In Prague
• Abdusattorov Catches Maghsoodloo As Prague Masters Sees Blunders, Turnarounds
• Maghsoodloo Ends Praggnanandhaa's 47-Game Unbeaten Streak
• Abdusattorov Enters Live Top 10 After Win In Prague Masters Opening Round