IMAGE: Three players, including Praggnanandhaa, finished the ninth and final round with equal points at the Superbet Classic in Bucharest, Romania, on Friday. Photograph: Kind Courtesy Prague Masters
Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa played out a draw with Levon Aronian of the United States to finish in a three-way tie for first place at the Superbet Classic, the opening event of the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest, Romania, on Friday.
With three players — Praggnanandhaa, Alireza Firouzja and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave — ending the ninth and final round with 5.5 points apiece, the winner will be decided via tiebreaks.
In the tiebreaker, the players will play two mini games of 5 minutes each plus a two second increment and if the tie persists the winner will be decided through an Armageddon game.
The Superbet Classic carries a total prize purse of $350,000.
Praggnnanadhaa did not take many chances with his pieces against Aronian who came up with an opening surprise in the form of French defense.
Employing a quite set-up, Praggnanandhaa exchanged the Queens early and the result of the game thereafter was not in any doubts as the pieces changed hands at regular intervals.
The players finally arrived at an opposite coloured Bishops endgame where the draw was agreed to after 43 moves.
Vachier-Lagrave defeated off-form Duda Jan-Krzysztof of Poland with white pieces going for complications in a Ruy Lopez game.
Duda did well to maintain the balance but a huge positional blunder on move 34 cost him dearly as his king came under massive threats by white’s heavy pieces.
Vachier-Lagrave won quite easily thereafter.
Firouzja defeated Deac Bogdan-Daniel of Romania in a keenly contested game where the Romanian seemed to have an upper hand in the middle game.
Firouzja, a master of tactics spotted a whole in white’s calculation after sacrificing an exchange and turned the tables in 54 moves.
In other matches of the day, D Gukesh played out a draw with Fabiano Caruana of United States while American Wesley So got the same result against Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan.
In the final rankings, Caruana finished fourth on 5 points, a half point ahead of Abdusattorov on 4.5.
Gukesh after a lot of ups and downs in the event, ended tied fifth on 4 points with Wesley, Aronian and Bogdan-Daniel.
Ā
Duda with 3 points, had to be content with the last place.
Results: R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 5.5) drew with Levon Aronian (USA, 4); Deac Bogdan-Daniel (Rou, 4) lost to Alireza Firouzja (Fra, 5.5); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 5.5) beat Jan Krzysztof (Pol, 3); Wesley So (4) drew with Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb, 4.5); D Gukesh (Ind, 4) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA, 5).Ā
