Picture Credit: X
On Sunday, March 2 Indian Grandmasters Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Aravindh Chithambaram played a draw after 59 moves to share the lead in the ongoing 2025 Prague Chess Festival. After five rounds of play, Praggnanandhaa and Chithambaram each have 3.5 points and remain one-point ahead of the trailing pack led by Vincent Keymer, Wei Yi of China, Anish Giri of Holland, Quang Leim Le of Vietnam. Chithambaram, playing with black, chose the Berlin defence against Praggnanandhaa's Ruy Lopez, which opened with the white pieces.
The childhood friends were accurate in their game on the board, and there was rarely anything to find a difference between the two. The contest saw almost no blunders as the duo divided the available points. Chithambaram will next face Liem Le, while Praggnanandhaa will face Sam Shankland in the sixth round on Tuesday, March 4 following the competition's first rest day.
Divya Deshmukh continues to struggle at 1.5 points
While Praggnanandhaa and Chithambaram picked up points, India's Divya Deshmukh's struggles continued by losing to GM Marc Maurizzi with the black pieces. Deshmukh, 19, started in a somewhat inferior position but could cling on as Maurizzi struggled to come through. However, the French Grandmaster maintained an almost equal position but gained success when Deshmukh lost her path in the 60th move due to Maurizzi's fault. Maurizzi seized the opportunity, forcing Deshmukh to withdraw during a 70-move marathon fight.
With this loss, Deshmukh is in ninth position with 1.5 points out of five. She will now face the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Finek. Meanwhile, the remaining four contestants sharing the sixth spot are the Czech duo of David Navara and Nguyen Thai Dai Van, Sam Shankland of the United States, and Gurel Ediz of Turkey.
