Reykjavik Open: Pragg and Andersen score

Three co-leaders

Reykjavik Chess Open Max Warmerdam entered round 8 as the sole leader of the Reykjavik Open. Playing white against top seed Pouya Idani, he decided to save some energy after a gruelling double round on Sunday by agreeing to a draw after 19 moves. The half point meant Warmerdam would at least go into the final round sharing the lead.

Idani was one of the five players in the chasing pack. The other four played each other on boards 2 and 3. Both games finished decisively, allowing the winners — Praggnanandhaa and Mads Andersen — to climb to shared first place on 6½ out of 8 points.

With three players sharing the lead and seven players standing a half point behind, we are likely to see a tie for first place in the final standings. In that case, the result in a direct encounter (or encounters, if more than two players are involved) is the first tiebreak criterion. If that is not applicable, the number of games played (byes were allowed in the event) and Median Buchholz are the next criteria that would break the tie.

In the deciding round, Andersen will have the white pieces against Warmerdam, while Pragg will face his compatriot Gukesh with black. Gukesh is one of seven players currently standing a half point behind the leaders.

Round 9 pairings

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	9	GM	Andersen Mads	2582	6½		6½	GM	Warmerdam Max	2599	8
2	2	GM	Gukesh D	2637	6		6½	GM	Praggnanandhaa R	2624	6
3	1	GM	Idani Pouya	2638	6		6	GM	Mishra Abhimanyu	2524	16
4	10	GM	Fier Alexandr	2573	6		6	GM	Libiszewski Fabien	2510	18
5	25	GM	Jarmula Lukasz	2434	6		6	GM	Gretarsson Hjorvar Steinn	2542	12

On Monday, Pragg scored a remarkable victory over Matthieu Cornette. The Frenchman, playing black, was overly ambitious with his 13th move. Pragg immediately grabbed his chance, sacrificing a knight to get a crushing attack on the kingside.

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Reykjavik Chess Open

A beautiful shot | Photo: Thorsteinn Magnusson

Standings after round 8

Rk.	SNo		Name	Typ	sex	FED	Rtg	RtgI	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	Rp	n	w	we	w-we	K	rtg+/-
1	6	GM	Praggnanandhaa R				2624	2624	6,5	0,0	8	32,5	2696	8	6,5	5,70	0,80	10	8,0
2	8	GM	Warmerdam Max				2599	2599	6,5	0,0	8	32,0	2680	8	6,5	5,66	0,84	10	8,4
	9	GM	Andersen Mads				2582	2582	6,5	0,0	8	32,0	2617	8	6,5	5,99	0,51	10	5,1
4	25	GM	Jarmula Lukasz				2434	2434	6,0	0,0	8	33,0	2705	8	6	3,15	2,85	10	28,5
5	10	GM	Fier Alexandr				2573	2573	6,0	0,0	8	32,5	2609	8	6	5,56	0,44	10	4,4
6	2	GM	Gukesh D	U16			2637	2637	6,0	0,0	8	32,0	2664	8	6	5,64	0,36	10	3,6
7	1	GM	Idani Pouya				2638	2638	6,0	0,0	7	33,5	2672	7	5,5	5,17	0,33	10	3,3
8	12	GM	Gretarsson Hjorvar Steinn				2542	2542	6,0	0,0	7	30,5	2617	7	5,5	4,84	0,66	10	6,6
9	16	GM	Mishra Abhimanyu	U16			2524	2524	6,0	0,0	7	28,0	2569	7	5,5	5,04	0,46	10	4,6
10	18	GM	Libiszewski Fabien				2510	2510	6,0	0,0	5	29,5	2634	5	4,5	3,96	0,54	10	5,4
11	15	GM	Maze Sebastien				2524	2524	5,5	0,0	8	32,0	2519	8	5,5	5,43	0,07	10	0,7
12	3	GM	Niemann Hans Moke				2637	2637	5,5	0,0	8	31,5	2557	8	5,5	6,15	-0,65	10	-6,5
13	20	IM	Beerdsen Thomas				2496	2496	5,5	0,0	8	31,0	2529	8	5,5	4,99	0,51	10	5,1
14	31	IM	Korley Kassa				2400	2400	5,5	0,0	8	30,5	2488	8	5,5	4,36	1,14	10	11,4
15	21	IM	Laurent-Paoli Pierre				2487	2487	5,5	0,0	8	29,5	2469	8	5,5	5,47	0,03	10	0,3

...245 players

Games from round 8

Replay all available games from the tournament at Live.ChessBase.com

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Books, boards, sets: Chess Niggemann

Carlos Alberto Colodro Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.