Gukesh wins again in Round 10 of the Tata Steel Masters but so do Abdusattorov and Praggnanandhaa - 10

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Gukesh leads the Tata Steel Masters with 7.5/10 by half a point from Nodirbek Abdusattorov on 7 points, a further half point behind is Praggnanandhaa. It seems very likely the winner will be one of these three players and all of them won today. There is a rest day on Thursday followed by the final three rounds with the event finishing on Sunday. Gukesh started the game as black with 1.e4 d6! the first time he'd ever played this, Max Warmerdam played 2.g3! a pre-event piece of prep and after 2...c5 they were in a Sicilian. Gukesh had the kind of complicated position he needed and after 24.Bf1? he was much better and after 28.Rc1? he launched a direct attack for the win. Abdusattorov probably was only half kidding when he described this as his worst game of the event, the sharp Sicilian quickly turned very tricky for him, especially after 14.0-0?! rather than going Kingside, he was so unhappy that he spent almost 30 minutes on move 23, eventually as time trouble approached he gambled with 27.f5, mostly because Sarana only had 15 minutes left. There were mutual mistakes before 39...Kf8? immediately cost Sarana the game. A bit lucky? Maybe but Abdusattorov knew only a win was really good enough. Praggnanandhaa was the other winner, he was the beneficiary of the dubious move 8...gxf6 which Vladimir Fedoseev made when he became confused about his opening. This led to a long term advantage but Fedoseev found some active play and the game became very complicated. Praggnanandhaa felt he had restored his advantage with 32.Bf3 and after Queen's came off he played a forcing winning variation. The other games were drawn, Fabiano Caruana was winning against Pentala Harikrishna but it was one of those endgames where is was really hard to find the best moves, many of them looked the same value, and he was a bit unlucky in the end not to convert after finding many really good moves. Wei Yi seemed to quickly lose faith in his position against Jorden Van Foreest and repeated for a draw, Leon Luke Mendonca played very solidly for a draw against Anish Giri and Arjun Erigaisi and Vincent Keymer drew a Ruy Lopez which seemed pretty well played. My thanks to Michiel Abeln for the photos and notes to the games. A shout out to Fiona Steil-Antoni for her post-game interviews on the official Tata Steel Chess YouTube channel. They've been excellent and to the point. In the Challengers Group Thai Dai Van Nguyen leads by half a point from Erwin L'Ami, they were both winners today. Masters Round 10 Standings: 1st Gukesh 7.5pts, 2nd Abdusattorov 7pts, 3rd Praggnanandhaa 6.5pts, 4th Fedoseev 6pts, 5th= Caruana, Wei Yi 5.5pts, 7th= Giri, Sarana 5pts, 9th= Harikrishna 4.5pts, 10th= Van Foreest, Keymer 4pts, 12th Warmerdam 3.5pts, 13th= Erigaisi, Mendonca 3pts, Rest Day Thursday 30th January. All groups. Round 11 Jan 31 at 13.00 GMT Van Foreest vs Erigaisi, Gukesh vs Wei Yi Giri vs Warmerdam, Fedoseev vs Mendonca, Caruana vs Praggnanandhaa, Sarana vs Harikrishna, Keymer vs Abdusattorov. Challengers Round 10 Standings: 1st Thai Dai Van Nguyen 7.5pts, 2nd L'Ami, Erwin 7pts, 3rd= Suleymanli, Bok 6.5pts, 5th Svane 6pts, 6th= Lu, Gurel, Nogerbek 5.5pts, 9th= Vaishali, Yakubboev 5pts, 11th Pijpers 4.5pts, 12th Oro 2.5pts, 13th Divya 2pts, 14th Bulmaga 1pt Round 11 Jan 31 at 13.00 GMT Oro vs Yakubboev, Lu vs L'Ami, Nogerbek vs Gurel, Vaishali vs Suleymanli, Svane vs Nguyen, Bulmaga vs Divya, Bok vs Pijpers, Tienkamp Round 6 Standings: 1st= Slagboom, Panesar Grutter 4pts, 4th= Beukema, Tudor, Kobe Smeets 3pts, 7th= Zwirs, Sofronie 2.5pts, 9th= Lohia, Holzke 2pts.

Source: https://theweekinchess.com/chessnews/ev ... gnanandhaa