Finek, Yuffa and Deshmukh all grab wins on Friday, reach the podium
The Challengers tournament at the Prague International Chess Festival concluded with an eventful ninth round, as all five games ended with a winner. After leading the standings for most of the event, 16-year-old Vaclav Finek secured overall victory by defeating Thomas Beerdsen with the black pieces.
Finek had entered the last day under some pressure. After building a lead earlier in the tournament, he arrived at the final round having signed three consecutive draws. Meanwhile, his closest pursuer Daniil Yuffa had collected two wins in a row and kept the race open. On Friday, Yuffa quickly defeated Jachym Nemec in a 20-move game, ensuring that a draw would no longer be enough for Finek to secure sole first place.
In this video course, GM Surya Ganguly joins IM Sagar Shah and drawing from his colossal experience, shares some uncommon endgame wisdom. The material mostly features positions with rook against rook and a pawn, and starts by covering the fundamentals.The young Czech player responded confidently in his game against Beerdsen. In a struggle that lasted 56 moves, Finek made the most of his rival's blunder on move 33 and converted his advantage to secure the full point. The victory confirmed him as the clear winner of the Challengers and marked the biggest achievement of his young career so far - one that carries an additional reward, as the winner of the event earns a place in the 2027 Prague Masters, where Finek will have the opportunity to compete against a field of leading GMs.
The final round also saw Divya Deshmukh defeating Stepan Hrbek with the black pieces to finish in sole third place with 5 points from 9 games.
Divya Deshmukh | Photo: Nils Rohde / ChessBase
The performances of Finek and Deshmukh were the most notable stories of the tournament. Finek's final score of 6½/9 corresponded to a Tournament Performance Rating of 2720. The result also secured his third grandmaster norm, meaning that he will soon be awarded the GM title and will therefore take part in the 2027 Masters already as a grandmaster. He was the only participant to complete the tournament undefeated, finishing with four wins and five draws. His performance brought him a rating gain of 21.9 Elo points.
Deshmukh's result was also impressive. Her 5/9 score produced a TPR of 2601 and yielded a gain of 12.6 rating points. As a consequence, she moves into the women's top ten on the live rating list, an encouraging development ahead of her participation in the Women's Candidates Tournament later this month.
Yuffa also left Prague with a positive result. Entering the event as the third seed, he added 7.8 rating points thanks to his performance in the tournament. The Spanish grandmaster now stands close to breaking into the world's top 100 and may reach that milestone with one or two further strong tournament performances.
Doesn’t every chess game get decided by mistakes? Absolutely. But most players never truly comprehend that they are making the same kind of mistakes over and over again.
All ten participants of the Challengers during the opening ceremony | Photo: Petr Vrabec / Prague Chess Festival
Beerdsen 0-1 Finek
In this course, we will learn how to identify passively placed pieces in any given situation and how to improve their health by bringing them into active squares.
Fully focused during his round-eight encounter - Challengers' champion Vaclav Finek | Photo: Petr Vrabec / Prague Chess Festival
Nemec 0-1 Yuffa
Round 9 results
Final standings
All games
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