Prague Masters: Aravindh plays out draw with Pragg

Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa played out a draw with fellow Indian Aravindh Chithambaram as the two stayed a full point ahead of nearest challengers after the fifth round of Prague Masters chess tournament here.

With 3.5 points in their kitty, Aravindh and Praggnanandhaa are now followed by top seed Wei Yi of China, Anish Giri of Netherlands, Quang Leim Le of Vietnam and Vincent Keymer of Germany, who all have 2.5 points apiece. Sharing the sixth spot are the remaining four contestants, the Czech duo of David Navara and Nguyen Thai Dai Van, USA’s Sam Shankland and Turkey’s Gurel Ediz. There are four more rounds remaining in the 10-player round-robin tournament.

The day provided just one decisive game with Wei Yi cashing in on his new-found form to beat Shankland. Anish played out a draw with Dai Van, David Navara came back from a much worse position to hold Keymer, while Le signed peace with Gurel Ediz.

This was the third classical game between Praggnanadhaa and Aravindh but the result did not change. Aravindh, playing black, decided not to push Praggnanadhaa into complexities and his Berlin defence was simply an easy guess to get a level position right through.

The opening that was popularised by Russian Vladimir Kramnik a quarter of a century ago in his match against compatriot Garry Kasparov held Aravindh in good stead right through the course of the game as Praggnanandhaa exchanged pieces at regular intervals.