Will we be seeing a dynamic opening today?
This is the kind of excitement that chess fans are waiting for in this crucial round!
Alas, Pragg sidesteps the main lines of the Sicilian and opts for a safe and strategic option.
Though White has a space advantage, Black will develop all his pieces first before starting to attack White's center.
This is an uncommon move, if not too modest. The idea is that White wishes to push his queen pawn up two squares, when pawns will get traded in the center. White now itself prevents Black's dark bishop from developing with a check on the white king and a possible exchange of pieces.
A classic and early 'prophylaxis,' so to say!
When faced with opening surprises, it is quite a 'Pro technique' to go for the soundest-looking continuations, to sidestep from the opponent's specific preparations. Here, this move isn't really a new one, as it has been played by none other than Magnus Carlsen himself before, though only in a blitz game.
Otherwise, White was threatening a mass advance of pawns, occupying the center comprehensively.
To recapture with the pawn looked natural, to preserve a grip in the center with pawns. This knight capture might weaken White's control over his advanced pawn in the center.
But Pragg played this move quite fast, within a minute of thinking. Which means that he is still in his opening preparation, having studied the position well in preparing for this game.
He probably aims to develop his queenside knight next, aided by this light bishop. It is quite common in the Alapin Sicilian for Black to develop his queenside pieces early, or to attack White's center.
White's undeveloped knight hurries early to the kingside, aiming to support his advanced pawn as well as the knight in the center. Further, White needs the presence of a knight on the kingside, so as to keep an eye on the black kingside - a traditional weakness in this variation of the Alapin.
It is important for Duda to challenge White's center, both the pawn and the knight. Only by attacking the center early, will Duda be able to justify surrendering space early in the opening.
It will be interesting to see how Duda will recapture the knight, as both moves will have their issues and nuances. At the same time, this exchange of pieces is fundamentally welcome for Black, as his position was mildly cramped.
Though the move is natural, Black's light bishop gets slightly misplaced in its current position. All in all, we can say that Pragg has got a good opening vibe today, giving him a mild advantage thanks to the space advantage.
The white Knight occupies an important square, as we opined earlier. But it will be interesting to know why Pragg spent 20 minutes deciding on this move. Was he trying to recall his preparation? Or did he want to make sure that moving the same piece twice in the opening was worth the time?
Though the moves looks strange, it has a concrete idea: the knight will go back to the kingside, where it will help Black in limiting White's aggressive intentions. Also, this helps Black to activate his light bishop which surveys the whole long white diagonal, lookig prominent.
White's dark bishop joins the knight in keeping the pawn securely protected. This is a delightful strategic device, often underestimated in value. By keeping the pawn under extra support, Pragg now eliminates any future threats to the pawn. And, as long as this Bishop stays in the diagonal, the pawn will act as a cramping element for Black, restricting his pieces and pawns.
This appears to be a mild mistake, as the Black Knight doesn't belong to this square, as he lacks a clear purpose.
After being under pressure for so long, Duda seems to have committed his first mistake here. Sometimes, this is the effect of being caught under the opponent's preparation in the opening. More than the position itself, the thought that one's opponent might know better about the position creates a perennial insecurity in a player's mind.
This pawn push is a multi-purpose move. White now wants to push his knight pawn two squares and drive the black knight away. Also, somewhere in the future, this will enable the white bishop and knight in the kingside to remain where they are. And it is a space-grabber.
After all, A good move is always one with more than one idea!
This is a high-quality move, seen only in the games of high-quality players.
Black has to immediately fight against White' kingside space grab. Any other lethargic reaction will give White a huge space advantage.
It is simply a delight in chess to watch a natural development such as this bishop move being the strongest choice too. White is unruffled by his pawn on the kingside targeted, and dares Duda to capture the pawn. In return, White's queen will come out to attack Black's kingside.
This exact position is a critical moment - it is important for Pragg to find the best moves here, which will keep Duda under sustained pressure.
By exchanging off the black knight with his light bishop, Pragg inflicts a structural weakness in Black's position. It is also a highly committal move, as he gives up a juicy-looking bishop in an open position.
It will be interesting to see how Pragg can justify this concrete move with supporting decisions in the coming battle.
Notice now the difference in pawn structures: White has two pawn islands compared to Black's three. Though White has given up a powerful bishop, his other two minor pieces still remain powerful. One suspects that Pragg will direct the resultant play towards exploiting the dark squares on the kingside.
Pragg continues to play forcefully, prompting Duda to make concrete decisions. Now, Black's light bishop is offered a pawn for free. In return, Pragg doesn't really get any concrete compensation, but only a great space and increased mobility for his pieces.
It is such abstract play without much regard for material, which makes a game of chess interesting!
Duda is more interested in keeping White's pawn in the center under his watchful eye. After all, winning material on the kingside might only lead to the white pieces getting more active.
Though this looks like a highly active move, the White Queen isn't getting much to attack on the kingside. It might have been better to continue to play slowly, blunting Black's light bishop, getting ready with a milder queen move, to get the white king castled, etc.
Duda creatively attacks White's central pawn, but it doesn't really help Black's cause in any way. Pragg should be able to keep his advantage by simply keeping the pawn supported.
Duda will be forced to recapture with his pawn now, which means White will enjoy a long-term advantage due to the difference in the mobility of the bishops and White's superior pawn structure.
This was probably unnecessary, but Pragg wants his pawn in the center to be gone. He reas that, in the resultant position, the Black king will be caught in the center, which he should be able to attack.
The downside of this argument is that there will be very few pieces left on the board now—only major pieces, in fact. In such a scenario, there may not be many opportunities for White to conduct a dangerous attack.
Black has captured the offered pawn.
This was probably Pragg's plan all along—he gets back his sacrificed pawn, but the black king doesn't have a good cover to safeguard himself.
But it is still a question whether this simplification was necessary. If this reduced piece position still gives Pragg any advantage.
Since White doesn't have any minor pieces to attack the Black king, it doesn't matter that Black's kingside isn't all that safe. Just with major pieces, it is unlikely that a kingside attack would succeed for Pragg.
After the exchange of rooks, Black should be able to equalize the game comfortably.
White's hope is still to keep pieces active on the board and aim to open up on the kingside.
Turning the tables on White, a whole rook is sacrificed to drive the white king to the center of the board. Though he is not exactly mounting an attack on the white king, Duda will use the sacrifice to force a draw by perpetual check here.
The white king has a narrow choice to respond to the black queen's checks. White is either forced to allow a draw through perpetual check or to allow the white rook to be captured, after which White himself will be forced to accept a draw through perpetual check!
The game almost ends in an anticlimax, as it is forcibly decided by perpetual checks.
Pragg conducted the game in a copybook fashion from the beginning: an original handling of the opening, a slight advantage in the start of the middlegame, imaginative positional play in the middlegame, and getting a near-seizable positional advantage in the middlegame.
But it was a misjudgement at this point that his advantage dissipated away. A pawn sacrifice led to an equal endgame with major pieces, where his advantage dissolved away.
This game was also a testament to Duda's defensive abilities—both the technical ability and the psychological ability. Under pressure since the opening when he was faced with Pragg's opening preparation, Duda kept his nerve and defended patiently. Even though he was slightly worse, he responded swiftly when he saw his chances and forced a draw in the end with the pseudo-sacrifice of a rook.
With Caruana and Aronian also drawing their games, the status quo in tournament standings is preserved. With a win in the current game, Pragg could have captured the joint lead in the tournament. Let us see how costly this mild miss is going to cost him in the ultimate analysis.
Siegbert Tarrasch, the ancient German chess master, formed his principles of positional evaluation in the early twentieth century, broadly under four elements: Quantity (material), Quality (Pawn structure, piece placement, etc.), Time (initiative, development advantage, mobility of pieces), and Space. In this, the last element is the most underestimated and misunderstood.
The current game is a nice example of the player with more space dominating the position. Pragg's advanced pawn on e5 is the pivot of the entire position, cramping Black's pieces and giving more freedom to White's.
Pragg has 22 minutes on his clock against Duda - a mild advantage for the latter.
After all, since it looked like Pragg, who got an advantage by being better prepared, it is noteworthy that Duda has defended stubbornly and now even has more time on the clock. It is at such instances that a player who was 'caught' in the opening gets his strength further in the game!
With Pragg rapidly developing his pieces, seemingly not bothered about material, it is up to Duda to defend his position from White's expanding space advantage. And he should definitely not forget his clock—chess players always consume more time under pressure, which will be a double whammy!
While Pragg has consumed 40 minutes for his 11 moves, Duda has consumed 50 minutes so far on the clock! ⏱️
Looking at the complexity of the position, this might be time crucial for both sides, and they will definitely face a time shortage in the incoming middlegame.
Mutual Time Pressure, Ahoy!
It looks like Pragg has 'caught' Duda in his opening preparation, with Duda consuming more time on the clock. But how much does it matter?
In tactical openings, such ambushes are quite dangerous. But in the current case, in a strategic battle from an Alapin Defense game, Pragg's preparation might not make all that much of a difference. After all, with a rating of Elo 2725, Duda must be competent enough to handle such surprises.
All said, it still raises a hope of seeing an opening preparation catching an opponent off guard—that's the nature of chess openings, after all!
We meet again, after a day of rest at Saint Louis! As we look at the tournament progress so far, there are two curiosities:
With four more rounds to go, Caruana is in the lead with 3.5 points, followed by Aronian and Pragg on 3. After these three, there are no more than five players on 2.5 points! And then, Duda is just behind all of them on 2.
This means that one win will enable any one of the 'chasers' will propel them near the top of the table, and two wins may even make anyone the tournament leader! By and large, the tournament is still wide open, provided players can score wins.
Secondly, after the end of the fourth round, Duda appeared at the live commentary and came up with surprising confessions. Dud somehow doesn't feel that classical chess is his favorite time control anymore, and he prefers blitz! Most surprisingly, he said, "I think it will be my last [classical] tournament for at least several months." This makes us question his motivation levels for playing such a strong and prestigious tournament as the Sinquefield Cup.
At the same time, Duda played a hair-raising game against Gukesh in the fifth round, almost winning it. On the other hand, after defeating Gukesh in the first round, Pragg hasn't been able to create chances for himself, falling into a drawing rut.
All in all, we can hope that both our protagonists have come better motivated after resting yesterday: Pragg to play sharper chess, and Duda to play chess itself!