The King's Pawn
Pragg, who is extremely flexible with his opening choices, decides to go for the sharp and direct terrain of king's pawn positions today.
Dubov goes for the 'copycat' move
It was the first big question mark, as Dubov also quite enjoys playing the Sicilian Defense. But he instead chooses to keep things solid here.
Targeting the central pawn.
Dubov defends the pawn, inviting well-studied openings like The Italian Game or the Ruy Lopez.
Also known as the Ruy Lopez, this opening has been enjoying a bit of a resurgence of late. Previously, it had been the Italian Game that was dominating elite level play. Let's see if Pragg is arriving with some fresh ideas here today.
Dubov chases the bishop away.
Pragg drops the piece back
Back in the day, it was not so uncommon to play bishop takes knight (known as the Exchange Variation). But modern computers have shown that the Black side equalizes here quite comfortably, so it's gone out of fashion.
Dubov steps his other knight forward, threatening to capture the central pawn.
Pragg invites Dubov to win the pawn
This is a very popular variation (if he captures it). It's known as the Open Spanish, and some of the lines there are quite forcing and direct.
Dubov decides to reject the offer of the pawn, instead going for the Closed Spanish, and preparing to castle next.
Pragg brings his rook onto the central file in order to defend the pawn.
Dubov breaks the pin, in order to cut out the threat of bishop takes knight followed by his knight taking the central pawn.
Dubov brings his own king to safety.
An interesting decision!
Pragg is inviting one of the most forcing and direct theoretical battles in chess, known as the Marshall Defense. Let's see if Dubov goes for it...
He does indeed 'take the bait', and now the play is going to move towards an ultra-high-stakes theoretical battle. This line is considered extremely drawish, so it'll be fascinating to see what fresh ideas Pragg has cooked up.
Pragg takes the pawn, activating the line of sight for his rook along the central file.
Dubov takes back
The point is that now, his central pawn is under fire and can be captured.
A-ha! So this is what Pragg has cooked up at home. He doesn't take the pawn, which is the line that is played the overwhelming majority of the time. Instead, he plays a very quiet-looking move that blocks the pin on his knight.
Dubov reacts relatively quickly
It's almost certain that he hasn't studied Pragg's choice of move in any real depth, since it has literally almost never been played at the master level. He will understand that it cannot be a move that gains an objective advantage, but he has the uncomfortable task of playing a position that he will have studied in less depth than his worldclass opponent.
In spite of Pragg's novel approach, the game hasn't strayed too far from typical play. With his last move, the Indian grandmaster is simply chipping away at Dubov's advanced queenside pawn.
Dubov drops his knight back, which has the dual benefit of targeting the queenside pawn and getting ready to activate the queenside bishop.
A surprising choice, and objectively not a very strong one. It's understandable that Pragg wants to mix things up and keep Dubov guessing, but this move could leave his left-edge pawn weak for a very long time! Plus, there's no longer any pressure against Dubov's advanced queenside pawn.
Dubov is happy to get a chance to reroute his knight, which can in the future jump towards the central square and pressure Pragg's bishop as well as the weak square in the center.
Pragg lifts his pawn forward one square, in order to patch up that weak square of his in the center.
A typical and aggressive idea
Dubov is a highly aggressive, and also highly ambitious player. So this move comes as no surprise, stepping his king away from the diagonal and preparing to potentially launch an attack along the kingside & center. If anything, he has the better chances already! A very clear opening success for him.
Pragg seems to be having an uncharacteristically off day, for his standards. This move is a big mistake, offering his opponent a golden opportunity to seize the initiative. What Dubov needs to spot is that he can push his pawn forward! The tactics work in his favor!
Dubov spots the simple tactic and finds the best move. The point is that now if Pragg plays rook takes pawn, then Dubov will go knight takes pawn on the edge of the board, with a nasty discovered attack!
An unpleasant retreat
Pragg has no choice but to drop back, with this square being relatively best. But it's really a worrying state of affairs for him now, since Dubov has established a strong clamp on the center.
Dubov defends his central pawn
The logical follow-up to his last couple of moves of play. With his king in the corner, the pawn is able to march forward. And now his strong central pawn gets some much needed support.
Pragg prepares to undermine the center
He plays a developing move, and for sure he will be intending on breaking down Dubov's hold on the center as soon as he can afford to do so. But it won't be easy to find the right moment, as this move is going to weaken all of the dark squares around his king. And that could backfire very quickly, especially against a player who handles the initiative as well as Daniil Dubov.
Dubov brings his bishop onto the long diagonal, a move that makes a lot of sense. Although objectively, it's a bit of a mistake, as he kills off the strong possibility of bringing that same piece to the right hand corner in the event that Pragg pushes the pawn forward.
All of a sudden, things are not so straightforward for Dubov. He's got a difficult decision to make here. His pawn is under fire and trading will help Pragg to bring his knight to a great square). In fact, the only truly good move he has is a tricky-to-play pawn sacrifice involving pushing forward!
A sensible choice
Dubov decides against the pawn sacrifice, instead choosing to defend his pawn. The game is objectively balanced again, but it's hard to judge which side has the harder practical decisions to make.
On the one hand, Pragg can take once in the center and leave Dubov with an isolated pawn that is likely to be weak in the long run. Then again, Dubov is the side with the safer king. Hard to call this one!
He doesn't capture the pawn immediately, and that's something that might just cost him. He's given Dubov a renewed chance to go for the pawn sacrifice!
The right reaction!
At least for now, Dubov seems to be onto the right way of handling the situation. He brings his bishop forward, exploiting the compromised dark squares, and targeting the rook.
Pragg reacts to the threat
He doesn't have much of a choice, besides lifting his rook up. Otherwise, Dubov's central pawn could march forward without any trouble, and that would be a complete disaster.
Dubov pushes it forward anyway! This is actually a very serious situation for Pragg to try to chart his way out of. If he takes the pawn, Dubov will move forward with his knight and ultimately win the exchange. But not taking it is even worse, as Dubov will be left with a protected passed pawn in the center!
Pragg avoids losing the exchange
He didn't want to allow Dubov to bring his knight into the center targeting the rook, recognizing that this would eventually lead to the loss of his rook for a knight. But now, Dubov can play bishop takes knight and then move his pawn forward. That's going to cement a very strong pawn in the center. Uncomfortable for Pragg!
Dubov wastes little time on his decision. The problem with pushing his pawn forward immediately is that Pragg would have had the move knight takes bishop.
Pragg recaptures the piece.
This is the key behind trading off his dark-squared bishop for a passive knight. Now he gets to push his pawn forward, locking in a protected passed pawn in the heart of the board.
Pragg sets up a battery
The queen and bishop combine into a battery, and what Pragg would love to do next is to jump his knight forward. That would target Dubov's own kingside knight, which is the only piece defending against the threat of checkmate.
A solid choice of move, rerouting the knight towards the kingside and giving himself the option of blocking the pressure against his king if needed.
Pragg tries to bring his last minor piece into the game
The dark-squared bishop is stuck behind its own pawn chain and it's clear that it's not going to enter the game via the 'usual' path, since it's staring at a wall of Dubov's pawns. So Pragg looks to either fianchetto it, or perhaps go for the other promising diagonal.
Dubov blocks the diagonal
It's not just about this, but also about defending the base of his pawn chain and perhaps even jumping the knight into enemy territory at the right moment. Plus, he sidesteps any pressure along the diagonal, should Pragg now move his dark-squared bishop there.
Pragg brings his final minor piece into play, gaining time against Dubov's rook in the process.
Dubov lifts his rook up, away from the sights of Pragg's bishop.
Objectively speaking, the position is rapidly deteriorating for Pragg. But in practice, the fact that Dubov has only 5 minutes on the clock and that the path to keeping an advantage is very minimal, means that we cannot at all rely on the computer evaluation to predict how this one is going to unfold!
Dubov trades pawns, a natural decision as his pawn is under fire.
There's no other reasonable option but to take back with the pawn. Capturing with the queen instead would have left Pragg with a terrible structure.
Dubov misses a chance to keep a significant edge, needing to have instead brought his knight out to the right-hand side. But his choice is very human, covering the forward jump of Pragg's knight.
Pragg drives the knight forward, and is now threatening the very dangerous jump into the center at the right moment.
There is an absolutely beautiful tactic here that Pragg needs to find, if he wants to hold the balance. He must jump his knight forward (that part is not so tricky). But then, he must spot that he can sacrifice his bishop to set up a beautiful double threat against Dubov's queen and corner rook! A huge moment in the game.
This is one of the most intense and crazy situations in the World Cup so far. If Pragg finds this resource, he will be the clear favorite to win the game. But if he misses it, then Dubov could end up having a winning position very soon!
Pragg has found the first move of the sequence. But has he spotted the key idea?! It's like a textbook tactic, though a very advanced one!
Dubov couldn't capture the knight, since then queen takes pawn would have been immediate checkmate!
If the bishop goes forward, then queen takes bishop is forced (otherwise checkmate). Then Pragg's queen moves up and hits the rook in the corner. But not just that, the queen will also x-ray Dubov's queen, setting up the threat of knight takes knight and then winning the queen on the next move! Therefore, Pragg will win the exchange by force in this way!
He's down to just minutes on the clock, and the sequence was so well-hidden that it was always going to be hard to find, even for a world-class player like Praggnanandhaa. Dubov back in the driver seat!
Dubov quickly jumps in with his knight, targeting the rook.
No other square to turn to, so Pragg drops his rook back.
Dubov's pieces are now starting to flood the position, with each turn gaining time against Pragg's somewhat misplaced pieces.
Pragg sidesteps the attack from Dubov's bishop.
Dubov goes for a quick exchange of pieces, if nothing else motivated by the fact that he just needs to play quite quickly. He's got under 5 minutes on the clock, though Pragg has even less than that...!
Pragg takes back.
Dubov brings his queen one square to the right, guarding the light squares. This is a good placement, as it monitors possible knight jumps from Pragg's strong central piece.
Pragg returns his bishop to the longest diagonal, not only supporting his central pawn but also anticipating a future pawn push. Still very much a three-result game here!
Dubov brings his final piece into the action, still playing quite quickly to keep the pressure up against Pragg, who now has just about 2 minutes on the clock!
Seems like Pragg was unable to find any very convincing active move, so he ultimately settles on a non-committal option. Not much has changed, but the bishop now guards the left-hand pawn and the open file is now cleared too. Might matter in the future.
He had the opportunity to jump his knight in instead, and generate a very strong attack. But now Pragg can trade pieces and kill those options for good.
Pragg recognizes that this knight is a very dangerous piece, and so he eliminates it. Plus, he wants to push his central pawn forward and he cannot do that without first making the trade.
Dubov recaptures with the rook, making sure to keep the queens on the board.
This is a move that Pragg has been itching to play for a long time, as it improves his structure and opens up his bishop.l
Dubov brings his queen forward, supporting a knight retreat and eventual maneuver.
Pragg sets up a tactical threat of rook takes pawn, since Dubov's queen is overloaded.
Dubov lifts his rook up one square, in order to cut out Pragg's tactical threat.
Pragg spots that this is a good moment to occupy the only open file of the position. He's been outplaing Dubov over the last few moves!
Pragg makes a big mistake, but this time it's Dubov that needs to find a near-inhuman tactical sequence. So in fact, in practice this might be a good situation for Pragg now, even though the computers are screaming that Dubov is in control!
Knight back to hit the rook. If rook takes pawn, then Dubov plays rook takes pawn check (blue arrow). And if king takes rook, then queen moves out to give a check. And in the end, Pragg cannot find a good square to move his king as he can lose his queen to knight checks or his rook to other checks!
Dubov misses it, but again this was to be expected. Now the queens are about to come off, and it looks like the game is going to slow down as we breach move 40 and arrive towards an endgame.
He will be happy to get an extra half an hour on the clock, having survived at least a couple of situations where with best play Dubov could have won the game. A draw seems most likely now.
Dubov too reaches move 40, as he takes back with the rook in order to defend his pawn.
...and Dubov accepts it, meaning that we're going to go into tomorrow's second and final classical game with a slightly favorable situation for the Russian grandmaster.
He'll be going into that game with the White pieces, and he's liable to play this in one of two ways. The first is to try to go for a super-sharp opening line to try and catch Pragg out in the theory department. That's something that Dubov has been known to do in key fixtures in the past.
But we might just see a completely opposite approach. In the previous round, Dubov made a quick draw in the second tie-breaker game against Georg Meier, offering a split of the point as early as move 6! His reason? He just wanted to immediately head to the second tie-break portion. Perhaps we will see the same logic being applied to tomorrow's game, with Dubov possibly reasoning that his chances against Pragg are best in the tiebreak portion.
More excitement lies ahead in any case. And that is not something that today's game was short of. Both players missed beautiful winning sequences: Pragg's chance came on move 29, while Dubov's was on move 39. If you really want to test yourself, check those moments out without a computer engine and see if you can find the solution! Not at all easy!!
An exciting match-up
It's round 4, and this one promises to be one of the more dynamic clashes of the tournament so far. From the White side, it's India's second highest rated grandmaster, Praggnanandhaa R. And with the Black pieces, it's one of the most tactically gifted players of the circuit: the Russian grandmaster Daniil Dubov.
While Pragg may be the favorite on paper, the truth is that Dubov is a tough opponent for any opponent. He's got a fearless style, and perhaps temperament also. And while he may not be a top 10 player, he has plenty of experience at the very highest levels of chess, having been a second for Magnus Carlsen in his last World Championship title defense back in 2021 against Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Let's see what kind of a strategy Pragg comes into for this one, as this will be his only White side game of their Classical clash. Will he try to push for the full point? Or play it a little safe? In my view, having White for the first game is a slight but uncomfortable disadvantage, as it's just very very difficult to strike the balance between being sufficiently ambitious without taking too much risk...