The Prague Chess Festival is taking place from February 27 to March 7 at the Don Giovanni Hotel in the Czech capital. The Masters and the Challengers tournaments are the main events, each a 10-player single round-robin with a classical time control. | Follow the games live with computer-assisted analysis starting at 15.00 CET (9.00 ET, 19.30 IST)
After an intense tournament at Weissenhaus, Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal had a free week before their trip to the Prague Masters. They decided to use this time to visit the residence of Anish Giri and Sopiko Guramishvili in The Hague. The plan was to record an opening video course for ChessBase. This was done quite efficiently in three days, and the course is a 7-hour masterclass covering opening play. Moreover, the trip turned out to be much more than just recordings. For the author, experiencing the life of a beautiful family, which combines ambition, love and respect, was extremely enjoyable!
Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Fabiano Caruana respectively to get ahead on the scoreboard in the semi-finals of the Freestyle G.O.A.T. Challenge. Meanwhile, in the consolation bracket, Alireza Firouzja and Vincent Keymer got the better of Ding Liren and Gukesh D. | Photo: Amruta Mokal
Magnus Carlsen is set to face Nodirbek Abusattorov in the semi-finals of the Freestyle G.O.A.T. Challenge after beating Alireza Firouzja in rapid tiebreaks. Abdusattorov drew Ding Liren to get a 1½-½ victory in their mini-match. In the other pairing of the semi-finals, Levon Aronian will play Fabiano Caruana. Aronian defeated Vincent Keymer in the second encounter of their match, while Caruana obtained the half point he needed to beat Gukesh D in their 2-game confrontation. | Photo: Amruta Mokal
Nodirbek Abdusattorov was the top scorer in the rapid stage of the Freestyle G.O.A.T. Challenge in Germany. The Uzbek prodigy was the only player to remain undefeated in the single round-robin, and got to collect four wins in seven rounds, including a fine positional victory over Magnus Carlsen. Vincent Keymer finished second thanks to his great performance on Friday, while Fabiano Caruana climbed to third place after collecting 2½ out of 3 points on the second day of action. | Photo: Amruta Mokal