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The first set of the final match at the online Chessable Masters ended on Wednesday with a 2½-1½ victory by Ding Liren over Praggnanandhaa. It has been a busy few days for the 16-year-old Pragg: the Indian chess prodigy shuttles between tournament matches and school exams. A second match will be played on Thursday — a draw will then be enough for Ding to win the tournament.
After four rounds at the preliminaries of the Chessable Masters, 22-year-old Wei Yi is leading the standings table on 10/12 points. Three of the favourites stand two points behind — Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren and Anish Giri. The 16-player online tournament is played with a football scoring system. Half the players will move on to the knockout stage from the single round-robin set to run until Sunday. | Photo: Niki Riga
It can be confusing when the opponent’s pieces don’t go where you were expecting them to go. After looking at a couple of games from the recent Grand Prix by Amin Tabatabaei, Jon Speelman decided to write about unexpected defensive moves! | Pictured: Murray Chandler, Jonathan Speelman and Jonathan Mestel at the British Zonal in February 1987
In an exciting second round at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin, three players obtained full points in remarkable style. Hikaru Nakamura and Leinier Dominguez won to take the lead in their respective groups, while Richard Rapport bounced back from a first-round loss by taking down Vladimir Fedoseev in a game that featured a positional piece sacrifice and exceptional tactical accuracy. | Photos: World Chess
Three decisive games in round 8 of the Tata Steel Masters tournament left Magnus Carlsen and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov sharing the lead on 5½ points. The Azerbaijani defeated Praggnanandhaa to catch up with the world champion. Meanwhile, in the Challengers, Arjun Erigaisi won his sixth game (in eight rounds!) to go into the second rest day of the event with a 1½-point lead. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit