Prague Chess Festival R3: Vidit Grabs The Lead
GM Vidit Gujrathi grabbed the sole lead with his second win in the Prague Chess Festival. The 25-year-old Indian grandmaster beat GM Markus Ragger in round three.
You can follow the tournament here in our live portal. The tournament runs February 12-21 with a rest day on February 17. The rounds start at 15:00 CET which is 6 a.m. Pacific time. The last round starts an hour earlier.
It's not easy to beat Ragger, and you can more or less forget about a victory in the opening. The Austrian grandmaster is a strong theoretician! Also in this Gruenfeld against Vidit, it looks like he could have drawn the game straight out of the opening.
As it went, Vidit won a pawn and capitalized on his advantage when Ragger missed ways to generate counterplay shortly before the time control:
The other winners were David Anton, who profited from David Navara's mistakes in time trouble, and Alireza Firouzja, who won a beautifully conducted game against Pentala Harikrishna that reminded of some of Bobby Fischer's wins in the Ruy Lopez.
Prague Masters | Round 3 Games
Prague Masters | Round 3 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2721 | 2962 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 2.5/3 | |||||||||
| 2 | Vitiugov, Nikita | 2731 | 2795 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 2.0/3 | 2.75 | ||||||||
| 3 | Firouzja, Alireza | 2726 | 2801 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 2.0/3 | 2.25 | ||||||||
| 4 | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2755 | 2824 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 2.0/3 | 1.5 | ||||||||
| 5 | Grandelius, Nils | 2659 | 2723 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1.5/3 | 2.5 | ||||||||
| 6 | Anton Guijarro, David | 2697 | 2723 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1.5/3 | 1.75 | ||||||||
| 7 | Ragger, Markus | 2670 | 2606 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1.0/3 | 2 | ||||||||
| 8 | Harikrishna, Pentala | 2713 | 2593 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1.0/3 | 1.75 | ||||||||
| 9 | Shankland, Sam | 2683 | 2611 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1.0/3 | 1.25 | ||||||||
| 10 | Navara, David | 2717 | 2433 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0.5/3 |
Hannes Stefansson continues to lead the Challengers section after a good, technical win against IM Lukas Cernousek. Meanwhile, Russian youngster Andrey Esipenko won his first game. In a spectacular fight with Polish GM Kacper Piorun, he could have lost as well:
Prague Challengers | Round 3 Games
Prague Challengers | Round 3 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Stefansson, Hannes | 2529 | 2819 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 2.5/3 | |||||||||
| 2 | Esipenko, Andrey | 2654 | 2713 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 2.0/3 | |||||||||
| 3 | Abasov, Nijat | 2670 | 2596 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1.5/3 | 2.25 | ||||||||
| 4 | Bartel, Mateusz | 2639 | 2552 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1.5/3 | 2.25 | ||||||||
| 5 | Nguyen, Thai Dai Van | 2560 | 2622 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1.5/3 | 2.25 | ||||||||
| 6 | Krejci, Jan | 2559 | 2558 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1.5/3 | 2 | ||||||||
| 7 | Van Foreest, Jorden | 2667 | 2602 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1.5/3 | 1.75 | ||||||||
| 8 | Piorun, Kacper | 2611 | 2615 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 1.5/3 | 1.25 | ||||||||
| 9 | Cernousek, Lukas | 2442 | 2455 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1.0/3 | |||||||||
| 10 | Kriebel, Tadeas | 2524 | 2323 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0.5/3 |
The Prague Chess Festival has a prize fund of 44,000 euros ($48,000) and runs February 12-21 in Hotel Don Giovanni in Prague.
Previous reports:
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Peter Doggers is Chess.com’s Senior Global Correspondent. Between 2007 and 2013, his website ChessVibes was a major source for chess news and videos, acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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