Prague Masters: Praggnanandhaa draws with Aravindh

Prague: Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa played out a draw with fellow Indian Aravindh Chithambaram as the two stayed a full point ahead of nearest challengers after the fifth round of Prague Masters chess tournament here.

With 3.5 points in their kitty, Aravindh and Praggnanandhaa are now followed by top seed Wei Yi of China, Anish Giri of Holland, Quang Leim Le of Vietnam and Vincent Keymer of Germany, who all have 2.5 points apiece.

Sharing the sixth spot are the remaining four contestants, Czech duo of David Navara and Nguyen Thai Dai Van, Sam Shankland of United States and Gurel Ediz of Turkey.

There are four more rounds remaining in the 10-players round-robin tournament.

The day provided just one decisive game with Wei Yi cashing in on his new-found form to beat Shankland. Anish played out a draw with Dai Van, David Navara came back from a much worse position to hold Keymer, while Le signed the peace with Gurel Ediz.

This was the third Classical game between Praggnanadhaa and Aravindh but the result did not change. Aravindh, playing black, decided not to push Pragg in to complexities and his Berlin defense was simply an easy guess to get a level position right through.

The opening that was popularized by Russian Vladimir Kramnik quarter of a century ago in his match against compatriot Garry Kasparov, held Aravindh in good stead right through the course of the game as Praggnanandhaa exchanged pieces at regular intervals.

The players soon reached a rook and pawns endgame where Aravindh was a pawn less but had enough counter-play. The position petered out to be a theoretically drawn when Aravindh gave up a second pawn leaving no shelter for the white king to hide behind.

Wei Yi capitalized on a tactical oversight by Shankland who played white. After a rather shaky start that cost him two losses out of first three games, the Chinese came back roaring with his second victory in a row after beating Navara in the previous round.

Shankland allowed a dangerous passed pawn on the queen side and it was all over in a mere 27 moves as black crashed through in the base rank with his heavy pieces.

In the challengers section, Divya Deshmukh succumbed to her third loss in the event at the hands of Marc'Andria Maurizzi of France and remained on 1.5 points. After attaining a nearly balanced position, Divya was outplayed by the French Grandmaster in the ensuing endgame.

Nnodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan emerged as the sole leader here taking down Jachym Nemec of Czech Republic. The Uzbek has four points from his five games.

Monday is the lone rest day in both sections and the battle will resume from Tuesday.

Results round 5: R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 3.5) drew with Aravindh Chithambaram (Ind, 3.5); Sam Shankland (Usa, 2) lost to Wei Yi (Chn, 2.5); David Navara (Cze, 2) drew with Vincent Keymer (Ger, 2.5); Quang Leim Le (Vie, 2.5) drew with Gurel Ediz (2); Anish Giri (Ned, 2.5) drew with Nguyen Thai Dai Van (Cze, 2).

Challengers: Richard Stalmach (Cze, 2) drew with Stamatis Kourkoulous-Arditis (Gre, 2); Ivan Salgado Lopez (Esp, 3) beat Vaclav Finek ((Cze, 1.5); Marc`andria Maurizzi (Fra, 3) beat Divya Deshmukh (Ind, 1.5); Ma Qun (Chn, 2.5) drew with Jonas Buhl Bzerre (Den, 3.5); Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb, 4) beat Nemec Jychym (Cze, 2).