Norway Chess 2024: R Praggnanandhaa loses to Magnus Carlsen in eighth round

Magnus Carlsen exacted revenge on R Praggnanandhaa in the eighth round of games at the Norway Chess tournament. The World No. 1 extended his lead in the tournament to a point with two more rounds to go. The Norwegian and Indian Grandmasters played out a draw in the classical format before the Armageddon tiebreaker was needed. In the quickfire contest, Carlsen got the better of his younger opponent to take a further 0.5 point lead.

Carlsen was unable to dent Praggnanandhaa’s solid play in the classical game and with a laboured effort won a pawn but only ended up reaching a theoretically drawn rooks and pawns endgame.

However, Praggnanandhaa could not match the guile of Carlsen and lost a handful of pawns while reaching the endgame wherein the Indian had two minor pieces against a rook. Eventually white’s extra material had the final say.

Praggnanandhaa calls his position against Magnus "kind of unpleasant, but it should be holdable!" https://t.co/19wf7f3Mv8#NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/HKdKY6AMZj

— chess24 (@chess24com) June 4, 2024

In the Armageddon game, the white player has ten minutes compared to black’s seven but white needs to win the game.

Elsewhere in the Open event, Hikaru Nakamura looked to be in winning position for the most part but faced tough resistance from Alireza Firouzja in classical chess. The youngster defended brilliantly and won the blitz showdown. In the third game on the day, World Champion Ding Liren squandered two winning positions as he lost to Fabiano Caruana in the Armageddon game.

With two rounds to go in the round-robin tournament, Carlsen has 14.5 points, ahead of Nakamura on 13.5. Praggnanandhaa on 12 is in third spot, a full point clear of Alireza.

Caruana is on nine occupying the fifth spot while Liren seems to have resigned to his fate, being distant last on 4.5 points. The Chinese world champion had lost four in a row to drop down.

In the Women’s Norway Chess competition, world champion Wenjun Ju scored over Pia Cramling to surge ahead of the field on 14.5 points benefitting from Anna Muzychuk’s loss against R Vaishali.

The Ukrainian remained in the second spot on 13 points, 1.5 points ahead of Vaishali and Tingjie Lei who accounted for Koneru Humpy in the other game of the day.

Humpy on eight points remained fifth in the standings, 3.5 points more than Cramling in the tournament.

Results round 8:

Open: Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 14.5) beat R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 12) 1.5-1; Firouzja Alireza (Fra, 11) beat Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 13.5) 1.5-1; Ding Liren (Chn, 4.5) lost to Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 9) 1-1.5.

Women: R Vaishali (Ind, 11.5) beat Anna Muzychuk (Ukr, 13) 1.5-1; Wenjun Ju (Chn, 14.5) beat Pia Cramling (Swe, 5.5); Tingjie Lei (Chn, 11.5) beat Koneru Humpy (Ind, 8).