Bucharest, May 15 -- Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa held fellow co-leader GM Alireza Firouzja to a hard-fought draw in the seventh round of the Superbet Chess Classic Romania 2025 here on Thursday IST, maintaining his place in a four-way tie at the top of the leaderboard with just two rounds to go.
Praggnanandhaa, playing White, appeared to have a slight edge when Firouzja ceded the bishop pair early in the middlegame. However, a minor inaccuracy with 23.Bc1 allowed the French-Iranian GM to trade down into an equal position. The draw keeps both players on 4 points, along with GMs Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who also split points in their respective games.
The only decisive result of the day came from Uzbek GM Nodirbek...