Gukesh vs Praggnanandhaa:In the thrilling match between the nation’s best young talent at the Sinquefield Cup, Praggnanandhaa had a winning rook endgame against Gukesh, a strong contender for the World Championship, but he wasted his advantage to let the 18-year-old draw in St. Louis.
The Grand Chess Tour round robin competition only featured a round 3 match, but Peter Svidler—Pragnanandhaa’s trainer from the beginning of the year—said from his position on the commentary panel that the stakes were slightly higher.
The Indian children are fiercely competitive with one another. They have grown up side by side. These games are really important. They have undoubtedly been playing each other since they were eight years old, if not younger in certain instances. Grandmaster Svidler stated this while the game was still being played on the board. “Therefore, this game matters for both of them.”
Gukesh made a mistake on move 34 when he attempted to assault Pragg’s final rook by pushing his king to the d7 square. This move came right after the rooks of both players had shot across the board to capture the rooks of the other player, resulting in the possession of only one rook by each player. Pragg’s rook was under pressure from Gukesh’s king, and the engine did not like it. Rather, it desired for his rook to provide a check on Pragg’s king and maintain pressure on his adversary.
From that point on, Pragg had the upper hand with white pieces for sixteen moves. But on his 50th move, Praggnanandhaa erred as well when he moved his king to e8.
As the game ambled along to an inevitable draw, Svidler pointed at a tendency appearing in Gukesh vs Pragg encounters.
“This repeats the story of many of their recent games when Pragg was playing white and got tremendous winning chances like in the WR Masters. Then at the Candidates, it went in a slightly different fashion because Pragg lost with white. In that game he played a very different and new opening idea and was far ahead on the clock at one point but then was gradually outplayed. But there, he missed a few clean shots at the goal with Gukesh with white pieces,” said Svidler even as the camera caught the sight of Pragg shaking his head in disappointment as it became apparent he had let Gukesh escape.
“It appears that you intend to provide some comfort and acknowledge the young player for his excellent performance,” grandmaster Yasser Seirawan informed Svidler within the commentary booth.
Svidler simply shrugged, explaining that even though he had an advantage going into the endgame, it was still a difficult victory for any player. “Neither of us are going to struggle with the positives from this game. He outplayed Gukesh from an endgame which I thought was going to be a very simple hold for black. However, you wish to win them over. The win wasn’t trivial. We were still having trouble figuring it out even after we were told (by the engine) how he could win.
In other matches, world champion Ding Liren was also leading against Wesley So, but two poor decisions caused his lead to be whittled away, resulting in a draw.
Following three rounds, a group of six players, including Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, and Ding, are tied for third place with 1.5 points, while Alireza Firoujza and Ian Nepomniachtchi are leading the 10-player standings with 2 points.
