In his “Game of the Week” show #522 Merijn van Delft looks at a positional masterpiece, in which the knights got dancing and the pawns pushed ahead. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can <a href="https://account.chessbase.com/en/create-account" target=" blank">register a Premium account here</a>.
After six and a half hours of play, Teimour Radjabov resigned against Hikaru Nakamura in the one decisive game of round 2 at the Candidates Tournament. Fighting draws were seen on all three remaining boards, with Richard Rapport missing winning chances against Alireza Firouzja and Fabiano Caruana surprising Ian Nepomniachtchi in the confrontation between co-leaders. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage
Pentala Harikrishna beat David Anton in the final round of the Prague Masters to clinch clear first place with 6½ out of 9 points. In the Challengers, two of the former co-leaders, Hans Niemann and Vincent Keymer won in round 9 and finished tied for first place. Curiously, they were also tied in all the tiebreak criteria. The organizers decided to stage a 2-game blitz match, which Keymer won by a 2-0 score. | Pictured: Le Quang Liem (2nd), Pentala Harikrishna (1st) and Thai Dai Van Nguyen (3rd) | Photo: Vladimír Jagr
Le Quang Liem grabbed the sole lead at the Masters section of the Prague Chess Festival after beating Saleh Salem in Tuesday’s sixth round. Pentala Harikrishna is in sole second place a half point back. In the Challengers, former sole leader Vincent Keymer was held to a draw by Marcin Krzyzanowski, which allowed Nodirbek Abdusattorov to climb to the shared lead thanks to a win over Max Warmerdam. | Photo: Petr Vrabec
All five games finished drawn in round 5 of the Masters section at the Prague Chess Festival, which left Le Quang Liem and Pentala Harikrishna sharing the lead on 3½ points. Meanwhile, in the Challengers, Vincent Keymer kept the sole lead after beating Peter Michalik with the black pieces. Nodirbek Abdusattorov (pictured) also won and is now in sole second place, a half point back. | Photo: Vladimír Jagr