During the sixth round of Prague Chess Masters 2025, R Praggnanandhaa was held in a draw by Sam Shankland, while Aravindh Chithambaram shared the point with Quang Leim Leim, carrying the two to four possible points one day when, for the first time in the tournament, all the matches ended with prints.
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The great masters R Praggnanandhaa and Aravindh Chithambaram continued to stay a joint advance after drawing their sixth round matches in the Prague Masters chess tournament.
Praggnanandhaa was held in a draw by Sam Shankland of the United States, while Aravindh divided the point with Quang Leim Le Du Vietnam to be on four possible points, one day when all the matches were taken for the first time in the tournament.
Praggnanandhaa and Aravindh remain in joint lead
Praggnanandhaa and Aravindh continued to be followed by the head of the head of China, Anish Giri of Holland, Vincent Keymer of Germany and Quang Leim, who are all on three points each.
Another half-point behind is the Czech duo of Nguyen Thai Dai Van and David Navara, Gurel Ediz of Türkiye and Shankland.
With three other upcoming laps, Praggnanandhaa has the advantage over Aravindh while he should play the next two games with white pieces. Aravindh, on the other hand, has only one match with White on the left.
The seventh round will be crucial for Praggnanandhaa while he will face Wei Yi, while Aravindh will meet Anish, who has drawn all his games so far.
Praggnanandhaa was under pressure for a while in the middle match against his American opponent, who played White. The opening included an ordinary Italian game and Shankland opened the position with a sacrifice of knight on the king’s side.
Shortly after, Praggnanandhaa had to separate from one of his towers for a minor part, and what the result was a very complex position.
By sailing between better and equal to it, the Indian allowed Shankland to make a forced rehearsal and the game was drawn after 43 movements.
Playing white, Aravindh faced the Queen’s Gambit decreased and made her strength around the center from the word.
However, as the game progressed, Quang Leim remained impregnable and, by the 19th movement itself, the players had exchanged up to three minor pieces and two pawns.
The structure of the pawn took a short tour when Aravindh decided to separate from his last bishop for a knight but Black had nothing to fear. The players quickly arrived at an end of the game of Rook and Pawns where the draw was a result just after 32 movements.
Divya Deshmukh undergoes another defeat in the Challengers Round
In the Challengers section, the fortune of Divya Deshmukh has not changed because it suffered another defeat and was pushed to the last place among 10 players. Vaclav Finel beat Divya in a tower end and Minor, leaving the Indian with 1.5 points.
Jonas Buhl Bjerre, from Denmark, found his head joint by beating Marc’andria Maurizzi from France. The Dane shares first place with Nodirbek Yakubev from Ouzbekistan.
