The first games of the Chess World Cup semifinals in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Saturday provided a lot of excitement. Praggu, 18, split a point with former World Championship challenger Caruana of USA with black pieces. But Abasov would be least bothered about the thrill. Rather, he would feel the heartburn as he lost, failing to capitalise on the oversight of the world No. 1.
Praggu kept his king on the right squares in the rook and pawns endgame as world No. 2 Caruana, 31, tried to use his one-pawn advantage. The Indian prodigy then almost forced a rook exchange. Caruana’s lone pawn was not in the unfavourable ‘a’ or ‘h’ files, but Praggu’s king was well placed to gobble it up.
That ended the contest after 78 moves. Local boy Abasov probably missed an opportunity of his life as he failed to punish Carlsen’s oversight (34.Qh2), ceding control of the first rank). Instead of pressing for a win, underdog Abasov went on to lose with black pieces.
He could not unfurl an aggressive 34…Qf1 which would have put Carlsen under huge threat as the Norwegian could have lost a bishop. Instead, Abajov played 34…Rg6 thinking for merely 40 seconds. He then probably realised his folly. For, the subsequent moves he played were below par and the peerless endgame player in Carlsen rubbed the salt into his wounds by marching home in cold-blooded fashion. The Sicilian Sveshnikov game lasted 43 moves.
Abasov now must beat Carlsen with white piece on Sunday to take this contest into tiebreaks. On the other hand, Sunday is a must-not-lose situation for Caruana and Praggu with the latter having white pieces.
Theirs was a Guico Piano game in which Caruana had double knight vs bishop and knight (two rooks each and queens were still on the board) till the 19th move. It transposed to rook, knight, queen and six pawns vs rook, bishop, queen and six pawns. Then the game saw queen, rook and six pawns each with tempo for White after Caruana exchanged knight for bishop.
The first game of the women’s final between second seed Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia and 29th seed Nurgyul Salimova of Bulgaria ended in a draw after 33 moves of Queen’s Gambit Declined.
Salimova had six connected pawns and a bishop against six pawns and a knight in the endgame. Goryachkina opted for perpetual checks.
