The third round of the Sinquefield Cup saw a fierce battle between the Indian chess rivals, as D Gukesh was on the hot seat while he survived a near draw against R Praggnanandhaa . Gukesh had pushed his black king to D7, setting a trap for the White Rook, instead which turned out to be a checkmate move for the White.
R Praggnanandhaa had a few minutes to figure out his winning move, as he held the driver’s seat, that is what the endgame in his hands. But alas, he played the wrong move, he pushed his King to Ke8, instead of Ke7,which meant he lost his winning move Rd6+, some more moves later, Gukesh took the opponent’s rook with the pawn and nearly missed from getting checkmate and thereby leading the match to a draw.
The battle for the best
For a while, a battle for the best has been played between these two prodigies. The Prague match in March, also was a lost endgame by Praggnanandhaa, where Gukesh tried holding off a good defensive side on his part of the game. In the inevitable draw, Peter Svidler, Praggnanandhaa’s coach spoke about the similar story of all the matches played between Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa, where Praggnanandhaa always had a upper hand and missed out on a rookie error, the same happened in this match, that he let Gukesh escape in a non winning game.
The stark contrast between these two prodigies and chess rivals have been quite evident in the range of achievements they tried to achieve recently.
While Praggnanandhaa became the first to chase the Grandmaster title, Gukesh broke that record too.
When Praggnanandhaa became the first to reach the World Cup Chess final, Gukesh broke that record to win the Candidates and become the only contender to World Champion.
Still, R Praggnanandhaa came last in the St Louis Rapid tournament before the Sinquefield Cup. Despite the comparison to Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa had always been considered the better opponent.
After the completion of three rounds in the Round Robin tournament consisting of ten players, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Alireza Firouzja are joint leading the tournament with two points. On the other hand, Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh had three draws in a row.
The scintillating match of draw
The intense clash between these two rivals started out with a fight for dominance in the game. D Gukesh played for the Black pieces and Praggnanandhaa opened up with a Catalan opening set.
Gukesh continued to play the game with his accurate speed and precision, until he made an error with his King. It was a chance of fate that Praggnanandhaa lost his winning move and Gukesh narrowly escaped the lost endgame. This resulted in another draw and a longer quest for Praggnanandhaa to win against Gukesh in a classical game.
Alireza Firouzja also managed to salvage a draw against his opponent, along with Ding Liren, the current World Champion who squandered off a draw. The tournament has six more rounds to go, and the champion would get a prize of 350,000 USD and a Grand Chess tour of 175,000 USD.
D Gukesh would now face Firouzja in the next match, while Praggnanandhaa would face Giri, in hope to break his non winning streak.
