Praggnanandhaa Makes Mistake, Suffers Second Round Defeat in Prague

Prague: Indian chess player R Praggnanandhaa lost to Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran during the second round of the Prague Masters Chess tournament. Unfortunately, Praggnanandhaa made a mistake due to time pressure and suffered his first defeat in 47 classical chess games. 

As a result of the defeat, Praggnanandhaa has lost his position as the top-ranked Indian player in live ratings. The spot has been reclaimed by Viswanathan Anand, who is a legendary player and also the brand ambassador for the event.

D Gukesh, meanwhile, came up with an impressive performance with black pieces to beat Nguyen Thai Dai Van of Czech Republic while the other three games in the 10-player round-robin event ended in a draw.

With seven rounds still to come, Iranian GM Maghsoodloo is sitting pretty on two points, a half point ahead of Gukesh and Nodirbek Abdusattarov of Uzbekistan who played out a draw with India’s Vidit Gujrathi.

Praggnanandhaa, Gujrathi, Richard Rapport of Romania and David Navara of Czech Republic share the fourth spot on one point each while Vincent Keymer of Germany and Mateusz Bartel of Poland are on joint eighth spot with 0.5 point in their kitty. Van is the only player yet to open his account.

Praggnanandhaa lost the game despite putting up a tough fight. He was playing with the black pieces in a London System and faced no significant difficulties in equalizing the position. However, Maghsoodloo kept looking for ways to complicate the game. 

At one point in the middle game, Praggnanandhaa even had a better position, but with time running out, it was challenging to finish off the game. Maghsoodloo relentlessly attacked the black king and finally found a blunder that created several threats, leading to Praggnanandhaa's defeat in 38 moves. 

On the other hand, Gukesh won his game against Dai Van, who played with white pieces in a reverse Benoni game. Gukesh played steadily, improving his position, and his perseverance paid off when the Czech player made a mistake and gave up a rook for a minor piece.

Wasting no time, Gukesh converted to an endgame and found a beautiful finish towards the end to force matters. The game lasted 52 moves.

Gujrathi accepted an early pawn sacrifice by Abdusattarov out a Four Knights opening. Playing black, the Uzbek never looked like in any real danger despite the material deficit and in the end drew in just 35 moves.

In other games, Bartel Mateusz had an easy game with Rapport while Keymer did not find any difficulty in signing peace with Navara.

In the Challengers section, R Vaishali lost her second straight game against Ediz Gurel of Turkey.

Results Round 2 (Indians unless stated): Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran, 2) beat R Praggnanandhaa (1); David Navara (Cze, 1) drew with Vincent Keymer (Ger, 0.5); Nguyen Thai Dai Van (Cze, 0) lost to D Gukesh (1.5); Vidit Gujrathi (1) drew with Nodirbek Abdusattarov (Uzb, 1.5); Richard Rapport (Romania, 1) drew with Bartel Mateusz (Pol, 0.5).