The Masters tournament at the Prague Chess Festival has been up and down for Weissenhaus winner Vincent Keymer: three games, three decisive results. In round three, he faced the US grandmaster Sam Shankland, who had started with 1½ out of 2 and was therefore half a point ahead of the German.
Out of an English opening, Keymer played with the better pawn structure in an equal position against the white bishop pair. He gradually took the initiative, was better from move 30 and won the full point thanks to his good endgame technique. Shankland was unable to keep the black passed pawns away from the promotion square for long.
Vincent Keymer | Photo: Petr Vrabec
Keymer is now level on points with Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. The winner of the Tata Steel Masters Wijk aan Zee scored a full point on Friday as well - the game featured tripled pawn on the e-file. It was a nice attacking game against Thai Dai Van Nguyen, who had won the Challengers tournament in Wijk.
Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu next to his grandmaster colleagues during the opening ceremony | Photo: Petr Vrabec
Only Aravindh Chithambaram is now ahead of the aforementioned winners of the day - i.e. Keymer and Pragg. With a strong victory against Wei Yi, he grabbed the sole lead. After his loss against Keymer on Wednesday, the Chinese player has now suffered his second defeat - after such a poor start to the tournament, Wei now stands in last place with just half a point to his name.
The remaining two games ended drawn: Ediz Gurel was unable to make the most of a favourable position against Le Quang Liem, while Anish Giri reached an endgame with bishops of opposite colours - which was unwinnable - against David Navara.
There were also three decisive games in round three of the Challengers tournament. The Uzbek grandmaster Nodirbek Yakubboev defeated Indian IM Divya Deshmukh, who had beat Czech IM Richard Stalmach in the previous round.
Much like the Uzbek, Denmark's Jonas Buhl Bjerre now has 2½ points to his name. He won against Stalmach. Czech FM Jachym Nemec is half a point behind the leading duo after defeating former co-leader Ivan Salgado Lopez.
Nodirbek Yakubboev | Photo: Petr Vrabec
