Tata Steel Masters, Round 9

Gukesh leads, Fedoseev on fire.

It doesn’t seem to matter what challenge is placed before Gukesh Dommaraju; whatever it is, he rises to the occasion. The Tata Steel Masters is just his latest success, and with his fourth victory in the tournament he finds himself alone in first place.

Today’s victim was Leon Mendonca, who played the first part of the game very well. He was prepared and handled the early middlegame better than Gukesh, but as the game drifted further away from preparation and became a fight between two players on their own, Gukesh soon proved his superiority. Gukesh, like Magnus Carlsen, is the sort of player who thrives in nonstandard positions somewhat off the beaten track, confident in his ability to outwit any opponent. He has done it again.

Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu started the day tied for first, but didn’t end up there. It wasn’t a bad day for Abdusattorov, as he comfortably drew with Black against Fabiano Caruana, but Pragg was convincingly outplayed by Anish Giri to fall a full point behind Gukesh and half a point behind Abdusattorov and…

Vladimir Fedoseev. Fedoseev continues to impress, winning his fourth game of the tournament (and of the last six games), defeating Pentala Harikrishna in a somewhat offbeat London System. He has been playing some of the best chess of his career, and with the two bottom seeds still on the schedule he has a very good chance to make the podium or even win the event - at least/especially if he survives the next round.

The remaining games were drawn, all featuring players behind Pragg and thus out of the top four. Today’s games, with my comments, are here; here are the pairings for round 10:

Erigaisi (2.5) - Keymer (3.5)

Abdusattorov (6) - Sarana (5)

Harikrishna (4) - Caruana (5)

Praggnanandhaa (5.5) - Fedoseev (6)

Mendonca (2.5) - Giri (4.5)

Warmerdam (3.5) - Gukesh (6.5)

Wei Yi (5) - Van Foreest (3.5)