Five co-leaders
In round three of the Super Chess Classic in Romania, Vincent Keymer played black against Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. Together with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, they were leading the standings after two rounds with 1½ points. The direct encounter between Keymer and Praggnanandhaa ended in a draw. MVL drew against Javokhir Sindarov, while Anish Giri beat Alireza Firouzja and Jorden van Foreest defeated Bogdan-Daniel Deac. As a result, five players now share first place with 2 points each.
In the game between Praggnanandhaa and Vincent Keymer, the Indian grandmaster reached a position with an extra pawn. The question of whether Praggnanandhaa could convert the extra pawn persisted all the way into a rook endgame, with rook against rook and pawn. The game ended with two bare kings and a draw.
Praggnanandhaa ½-½ Keymer
The previous day, Keymer had sacrificed two pawns for a kingside attack. Against Pragg, the pawn sacrifice gave him active piece play. However, he could not achieve more than a draw.
On move 68, Anish Giri and Alireza Firouzja were playing only with the time added by the increment on each move. Firouzja was fighting with a bishop and three pawns against Giri’s rook and two pawns. Firouzja still had a trick available to secure a draw, but with little time on the clock he did not find it.
With the correct move order, a mating net would have been threatened, which would have forced Giri to allow his opponent to take the b-pawn with the bishop after …Be1 and a white rook move. Black would then have been able to continue fighting for a draw.
This video course includes GM Anish Giri’s deep insights and IM Sagar Shah’s pertinent questions to the super GM. In Vol.1 all the openings after 1.e4 are covered.
Anish Giri vs. Alireza Firouzja | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Deac 0-1 Van Foreest
In this video course experts examine the games of Bent Larsen. Let them show you which openings Larsen chose, where his strength in middlegames were, how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame & you’ll get a glimpse of his tactical abilities!Bent Larsen (1935–2010) was the greatest chess player in Danish history, and for a time, the second-strongest player in the Western world behind Bobby Fischer. Between 1954 and 1971, he won the Danish Championship six times, and achieved numerous international tournament victories throughout his career.
Free video sample: Introduction to Bent Larsen by Peter Heine Nielsen
Free video sample: Introduction to the Opening Section
Bogdan-Daniel Deac v. Jorden Van Foreest | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Round 3 results
Standings after round 3
All games
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