Yuffa and Gledura win, remain in the fight for the title

With one round remaining in the Challengers tournament at the Prague Chess Festival, the race for first place remains open. Although Vaclav Finek continues to lead the standings, his advantage has been reduced to half a point after Daniil Yuffa secured his second consecutive victory in Thursday's eighth round.

Finek, who has been leading since round three, now stands on the brink of the final round with a narrow margin. Yuffa follows closely behind, while Jachym Nemec and top seed Benjamin Gledura remain within striking distance, each a further half point back.

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The relevant pairings in the fight for the title:

• Finek will play black against Thomas Beerdsen
• Yuffa will face Nemec with the black pieces
• Gledura will also take black, against Surya Shekhar Ganguly

Jachym Nemec, like Benjamin Gledura, stands a full point behind the tournament leader | Photo: Nils Rohde / ChessBase

In the penultimate round, Finek had the white pieces against Ganguly and was forced to defend a difficult endgame. The material balance was highly unusual: White had rook, bishop, knight and three pawns, while Black possessed a queen and six pawns.

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Although engine analysis indicated that Ganguly had several possibilities to press his advantage, identifying the most precise continuations over the board was far from straightforward. Finek demonstrated considerable resilience, holding the position together under sustained pressure and eventually securing the draw.

Vaclav Finek | Photo: Nils Rohde / ChessBase

Another endgame configuration that is not often seen in practice appeared in the game between Gledura and Stepan Hrbek. The Hungarian GM gradually converted a small advantage in a position where both sides had two knights on the board, while Gledura held an extra pawn.

Positions featuring four knights are surely difficult to calculate accurately, but Gledura managed to coordinate his pieces effectively and ultimately convert his advantage to collect the full point.

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Benjamin Gledura during his round-five encounter against Zhu Jiner | Photo: Petr Vrabec / Prague Chess Festival

Meanwhile, Yuffa’s victory came against second seed Jonas Buhl Bjerre. The Spanish representative adopted a positional approach in the opening, which turned out to be a bit too speculative. Bjerre later overlooked a powerful pawn sacrifice in the early middlegame that could have generated good chances to get an advantage, allowing Yuffa to maintain the initiative and eventually secure the win.

Round 8 results

Standings after round 8

All games

Links

• Official site
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