R Praggnanandhaa loses to Magnus Carlsen in the eighth round – Firstpost

Magnus Carlsen took revenge on R Praggnanandhaa in the eighth round of the Norwegian chess tournament. The world No. 1 extended his tournament lead to one point with two rounds remaining. The Norwegian and Indian Grandmasters played to a draw in the classical format before the Armageddon tiebreaker was necessary. In the quickfire competition, Carlsen got the better of his younger opponent to take another 0.5 point lead.

Carlsen could not shake Praggnanandhaa’s strong play in the classic game and, with painstaking effort, won a pawn, but only ended up reaching an endgame theoretically drawn by rooks and pawns.

However, Praggnanandhaa could not match Carlsen’s cunning and lost a handful of pawns upon reaching the endgame where the Indian had two minor pieces against a rook. Ultimately, White’s extra material had the last laugh.

Praggnanandhaa calls her position against Magnus “rather unpleasant, but it should be tenable!” » https://t.co/19wf7f3Mv8#NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/HKdKY6AMZj

– chess24 (@chess24com) June 4, 2024

In the game Armageddon, the white player has ten minutes to black’s seven, but white must win the game.

Elsewhere in the Open event, Hikaru Nakamura appeared to be in winning position for the most part, but faced strong resistance from Alireza Firouzja in classical chess. The youngster defended brilliantly and won the blitz. In the third match of the day, world champion Ding Liren lost two winning positions as he lost to Fabiano Caruana in the Armageddon match.

With two rounds remaining in the round robin, Carlsen has 14.5 points, ahead of Nakamura with 13.5. Praggnanandhaa, out of 12, is in third place, one point ahead of Alireza.

Caruana is on nine and in fifth place while Liren appears to have resigned to his fate, being a distant last with 4.5 points. The Chinese world champion had lost four in a row to fall.

In Norway’s women’s chess competition, world champion Wenjun Ju scored against Pia Cramling to take a lead with 14.5 points, taking advantage of Anna Muzychuk’s defeat against R Vaishali.

The Ukrainian remained second with 13 points, 1.5 points ahead of Vaishali and Tingjie Lei who replaced Koneru Humpy in the day’s other match.

Humpy, with eight points, remained fifth in the standings, 3.5 points ahead of Cramling in the tournament.

Round 8 results:

Open: Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 14.5) beat R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 12) 1.5-1; Firouzja Alireza (Fra, 11) beat Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 13.5) 1.5-1; Ding Liren (Chn, 4.5) lost to Fabiano Caruana (USA, 9) 1-1.5.

Women: R Vaishali (Ind, 11.5) defeated Anna Muzychuk (Ukr, 13) 1.5-1; Wenjun Ju (Chn, 14.5) beat Pia Cramling (Sweden, 5.5); Tingjie Lei (Chn, 11.5) defeated Koneru Humpy (Ind, 8).