Bucharest (Romania), May 12: In a three-way lead after the fifth round, Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa will open as black against Duda-Jan-Krzysztof of Poland in the sixth round of the Superbet Classic, a part of the Grand Chess tour, here on Tuesday.
A lone victory against Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan in round three and remaining four draws have taken Praggnanandhaa to three points out of a possible five and the Indian is in joint lead with Fabiano Caruana of the United States and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France.
D Gukesh’s hunt for an elusive victory continued in the first half of the event and the youngest ever world champion has just got four draws besides one loss in his five games thus far.
American duo of Levon Aronian and Wesley So, Deac Bogdan Daniel of Romania and Firouzja Alireza of France share the fourth spot on 2.5 points behind the three leaders while Abdusattorov, Duda and Gukesh hold the eighth spot in the 10-players round-robin tournament.
With a 100000 USD at stake as the first prize out of a total prize pool of USD 350000 in the tournament, all eyes will be on Praggnanandhaa especially as after Duda, he will be left with two white games out of the last three rounds when he meets Alireza, Wesley and finally Aronian.
For Gukesh the road to recovery is still long but the Indian has proven time and again his capacity to bounce back from adverse situations. The lone rest day on Monday might give the breather Gukesh needs to start his comeback.
Caruana and Vachier-Lagrave have had similar results like Praggnanandhaa with one win and four draws apiece and both have displayed good form coming into the rest day. (PTI)
