Prague: Abdusattorov Wins With a Round to Spare

It's not just Firouzja and the Indian youngsters we need to watch for.

In case you’ve only been paying attention to the kids/”kids” who have made it to the Candidates - Alireza Firouzja, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, and Dommaraju Gukesh - well, it’s time to remember the young Uzbek superstar Nodirbek Abdusattorov. He’s just 19 years old - a year older than Pragg and two years older than Gukesh, but a year younger than Firouzja - and now #4 in the world, trailing only Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Hikaru Nakamura. Not bad.

Prague has gone like a dream for him, notwithstanding a somewhat unnecessary loss to Praggnanandhaa. In fact, he was also losing - for just half a move - to Parham Maghsoodloo in the most recent round (round 8, the penultimate round), but he won that crazy game to clinch clear first with a round to spare. Had Maghsoodloo won that game, he’d have entered the last round with a half-point lead over Abdusattorov, but now it’s Abdusattorov who is a point and a half clear of Maghsoodloo, Praggnanandhaa, and - a big surprise here - bottom seed Thai Dai Van Nguyen.

Another half a point back you’ll find another trio: Gukesh, Richard Rapport, and David Navara. Mateusz Bartel is still another point back, tied with Vincent Keymer, and in clear last place is Santosh Vidit Gujrathi, who is having a dreadful event. (Hopefully this won’t affect his performance in the Candidates.)

I covered the round 1 games in an earlier post, and will get to rounds 8 and 9 later. For today, here are the games from rounds 2-7, with comments to all of the decisive games (of which there are plenty) and one of the draws.