Praggnanandhaa plays the Dutch, The Dutch play each other | Super Chess Classic 2026

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Welcome everyone to the sixth round of the Super Chess Classic in Bucharest, Romania. Entering in is Anish Giri. In great mood with his second and trainer, Yan Smiths. Uh Anish is on plus one right now with his win against Alira Fuja.

[00:00:20]And there we have Wesley. So coming in with his foster mother, Lotus Key.

[00:00:26]They're traveling across the world right now. And there you have MVL coming in with his second or friend. I'm not sure.

[00:00:35]Maybe you can tell me in the comments who he is. Di Bdan Daniel there uh entering in with his mother, the local star Jordan Vanforest with his brother Lucas Vanforest and Fabiano Karuana is here with Gregory Oparin. And in the background we have the Indian superstar Pragnaandanda coming in with his mom and his second vibosuri.

[00:01:06]Pragnaandanda also on plus one right now. So he did win his game against Jawir Sindarov and right now he has an excellent chance of defending his title in this tournament if he manages to win today's game against Diarch Bogdan Daniel because he's playing against the last seed of the event through Prague.

[00:01:31]We can actually see what the venue looks like when you enter in. Uh it is the Parliament of Romania and Prague signing an autograph uh you know giving an autograph before the game.

[00:01:49]Gary Kasparo's poster greets you as you enter in. And there are also chairs here for everyone to sit and enjoy the games. There you have datan Daniel taking on Pragnaandanda and Jawir Sindaro. The world championship challenger comes in to face Fabiano Kuruana.

[00:02:31]And there we have the guest who's going to make the first move on the board of Prague and Dachch.

[00:02:41]And he chooses the move pawn to E4.

[00:02:47]And we have another guest who's here who's going to make the opening move on the board of Kuwana. and he chooses D4.

[00:02:56]Everyone going for different openings here.

[00:03:01]And then we have the ambassador of Netherlands in Romania who's going to make the move on the all Dutch derby between Yordan and Anish. And she plays her knight to F3. Anish approves of it.

[00:03:19]He's like, "Yeah, that sounds good.

[00:03:21]That's good. go there >> and the games begin.

[00:03:28]Vincent Kimer is not present the tournament leader because he's facing Aliraza Fuja and Fuja withdrew from the tournament. It has definitely created some kind of an imbalance his withdrawal because all the remaining players will get one full point. Ooh, and Pragnanhand plays the Dutch defense. Wow.

[00:03:54]And meanwhile, we also have a very interesting opening in the Jordan versus Anish games. We'll analyze these games for you so that you have an idea of what transpired in them.

[00:04:13]Let's begin with the game of Cindarov versus Kuana. It started off with E4 E5, knight F3, knight C6. It was the Italian on the board and the players played through the opening normally and Cinderov went for a very typical plan in this position which revolved around swiveing his knight from E7 to G6.

[00:04:37]Knight to G6. A5. Bishop drops back to A7. He pushed his pawn to D4. Fabi here.

[00:04:44]Rook E8. maintaining the structure and then avoided the bishop trade. Knight H7 gave a chance to Fabi to fight for an advantage. But as it turned out, he did not play accurately and in fact had to settle for a draw in a few moves. Knight H2 maybe here taking on G5 would have given him a very nice edge to play with.

[00:05:07]But instead he went here and Jawakir managed to actually equalize the game quite easily at this point. Uh it was interesting for me to note that here Fabiano Karuana actually agreed to a draw by moving his knight back and forth and the players agreed to a three-fold repetition.

[00:05:31]And personally, I think that Fabi could still play on, right? Like his knight is better than the bishop. Um, but somehow maybe he didn't feel it that it's easy to make progress. The knight can't go away. The rook could enter double on the D file. So that's the reason why a draw was agreed in this encounter.

[00:05:53]We now leave you with some of the footages where Cindarov is interacting with the fans. Uh you can see how popular he has become after winning the candidates.

[00:06:23]Number one, please.

[00:06:55]Yeah.

[00:07:18]Okay.

[00:07:36]Mhm.

[00:08:08]Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:08:15]>> Now, let's go to the game between Yordan Vanforest and Anish Giri. It started off with the English And here h3 move was played by Yordan as a small surprise maybe but very soon Anish got a very nice position. In fact, this is where Anish uh also had a better position according to the engines. But it was all part of Yordan's prep and he went for this move F4 claiming space in the center while Anish played on the queen side and this was already serious edge as you have control on the B3 square. This move by Anish, rook A6 perhaps wasn't the best.

[00:08:56]F6. And by the way, they drew their game. We go through this game. Uh, rook a6, knight f3 and very soon yordan started to get his play and here c4 was played by a nish. Bishop c7 and a nice tricky move bishop d6 attacking the queen trading of pieces. You get here and now d3 to attack the bishop takes.

[00:09:22]Takes you could also take back with the a pawn. The position would have been round about even. D2. And now here Anishh gives up the pawn to actually activate all his pieces. They go into a rook end game. The back rank mate has to be prevented. So king G8. And now after the trade of everything, this is equal.

[00:09:47]Take check. And the pawns were equalized. And look at them analyzing the Dutch number one and Dutch number two. They analyzed.

[00:09:57]They were they had a lot to discuss with each other and maybe Anishh had good chances out of the opening and could have pressed better but somehow Yordan managed to hold it and Anish is still in the joint second position with three and a half points out of six.

[00:10:18]Let's hear what they are analyzing.

[00:10:23]game.

[00:10:25]>> I just thought in the end game very fine say >> you are fighter.

[00:10:29]>> No, I didn't know.

[00:10:30]>> Maybe maybe I'm misunder but I think it's probably equal. I mean I was initially thinking I'm better than I thought maybe I'm not better.

[00:10:38]>> I mean I couldn't anything after this six.

[00:10:42]>> You plan for you trying to Yeah, because this is actually >> No, finally I decided to leave.

[00:10:47]>> Yeah. Yeah, I think there's nothing.

[00:10:49]No, I was actually thinking about Yeah, but I was also getting I thought I'm better.

[00:10:57]>> I was looking at king F2 for a long time.

[00:11:03]>> Yeah. Rook D1.

[00:11:04]>> Bishop B6. I don't know. G46 comes.

[00:11:10]>> Yeah, check.

[00:11:13]I also have rook D1 in the check and check. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:18]No, but it's open.

[00:11:20]>> Maybe I wasn't sure. I mean, I don't know.

[00:11:22]>> This I don't think white is playing.

[00:11:55]So, one for me, one for my coach.

[00:12:09]Thank you.

[00:12:28]Thank you so much.

[00:12:52]Pragna Nandanda came to the mood in the game to fight for a win with the black pieces but it became very clear that it was difficult for him as Diarch is an excellent positional player. Look at this move. G5 by Prague. He went all out against Diarch. And now after take take here, knight takes, pawn takes. White always had an edge. But somehow Prague managed to equalize.

[00:13:20]And it wasn't really possible for him to fight for the full point. Like here, he's already comfortable. He's trying to maybe press a bit, but white always had activity. And here, by the way, trading here could have given Pru some chances as this pawn is weak, but he played rook B3. And then we went into a rook end game very soon where it was unclear who was trying to play for the win. I guess both players knew that it was just equal. Prague got active, tried to hold on to the pawn, but white got the pawn and then attacked here and very soon black was a pawn up but it was not sufficient for the win and we soon saw the filidor come on the board and in fact they even went into a pawn end game here with finally uh the game ending in a stalemate as well.

[00:14:27]Let's just see the players playing out the final moves of the game. So for Prague, maybe not the best of the results, but also it's very difficult to play for a win with black pieces against a solid player like Dach, Bdan, Daniel. Your opening has to work out and for Prague that did not happen. And the players here agree to a draw. And there you have it. So the game ended in a draw and after the game Prague went outside and was met with fans which was wonderful to see.

[00:15:44]Sorry.

[00:15:47]Sorry.

[00:15:52]Thank you.

[00:16:15]Thank you.

[00:16:36]Wesley So had a realistic chance of beating MVL. They played the Sicilian and white got a very pleasant position out of the opening. You can see how the game progressed here. White won a pawn.

[00:16:49]Black also got the central pawn. But here the resulting position was a knight on e4 versus a bishop. And in this position these pawns did look weak for black. And in fact Wesley really really played well and managed to put a lot of pressure on his opponent. But here maybe stopping knight e2 check with something like rook d2 would have been nicer.

[00:17:15]But once they went into this major piece end game, it did feel like black always had enough to hold. And in fact, this was such an amazing uh decision by MVL to play this position and push his pawn to H4, just making sure that Wesley was unable to make progress. And in the end he even gave up another pawn here to just hold it very cleanly to a draw. So an excellent defensive effort by MVL. You can see him relax there while Wesley well he did push really really nicely but at top level the margin for a draw is usually quite high.

[00:18:03]>> No check.

[00:18:04]>> Yeah. Ah. Ah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:10]>> Yeah.

[00:18:22]>> Comes not so easy.

[00:18:23]>> Ah.

[00:18:25]>> Ah. Because >> I thought six.

[00:18:29]>> They You don't have anything better?

[00:18:31]>> I couldn't find. I thought maybe for like 24 I was not sure then 676.

[00:18:40]>> Yeah, but maybe even queen. I mean, I was not sure.

[00:18:45]>> You still lose the pawn.

[00:18:47]>> Yeah, but this would be hard to go cuz I missed rook E5. So, I saw >> rook A5 now.

[00:18:54]>> Rook E5. I missed this idea was rook E5 after king H7. Yeah, rook E5 is good.

[00:18:59]Yeah, maybe if I go rook C8. Queen E4.

[00:19:02]So some check here. Rook E5. And then I have to defend.

[00:19:08]Yes.

[00:19:20]But then I couldn't >> maybe knight G5. I don't know. But maybe my preparation said that this is risky but I cannot remember. Ah, maybe knight G5 after picture.