Grandmaster Nikita Petrov took an important step towards defending his title by winning the tenth round in a duel with Grandmaster Nebojša Nikčević.
In the final round of the 77th Montenegrin Individual Chess Championship, a draw will be enough for Petrov to defend his title.
This would be his second title in his second appearance at the Montenegrin championships.
In the grandmaster derby, a Spanish game was played, Petrov led the white pieces, and after Nikčević's carelessness, he launched a tactical attack on the black king.
With a series of precise moves, Petrov weaved a checkered web, and the final picture is beautiful, as Petrov checked his opponent with a knight, sacrificing a queen.
In the final round, Petrov, leading the white pieces, meets Veljko Šćekić, who defeated Miloš Vlatković tonight by taking advantage of his blunder in the far endgame.
FIDE master Nemanja Vukčević also has a theoretical chance to write his name on the list of Montenegrin champions, as he defeated Milorad Ratković in the tenth round, in an interesting match, with precise play, and remained half a point behind Petrov.
In the duel on the third table, one of the greatest talents of Montenegrin chess, Peko Đurović, played decisively with the black pieces and recorded a victory against Andrej Šuković by taking advantage of his passive play.
With the victory, Đurović has seven points on his account, and Đurović is tied for third place with Denis Kadrić.
Kadrić, with the black pieces, managed to end Miloš Pečurica's streak of 18 games without defeat at the national championships.
The fight for medals will be interesting until the last move, guaranteed by the pairs of the last round, in which Nemamja Vukčević and Peko Đurović meet, or Denis Kadrić and grandmaster Nikola Đukić, who returned to the top of the table with a victory in the tenth round against Blaž Kalezić.
It is interesting that in today's round, the games were decided at the first eight tables, and important victories were achieved by Vladimir Vujošević, who took advantage of Aleksandar Tomić's carelessness in the cannon endgame, Armin Mušović, who punished grandmaster Božidar Ivanović's oversight with checkmate, and Bogdan Podlesnik, who defeated Uroš Rašović.
Petrov is leading with 8,5 points heading into the final round.
Vukčević is second with eight, while Kadrić and Đurović each won seven points.
In the last eleventh round, the following teams will meet: Petrov - Šćekić, Vukčević - Đurović, Kadrić - Đukić, Vujošević - Šuković, Kalezić - Mušović, Nikčević - Pečurica, Podlesnik - Ratković, Rovčanin - Tomic, Pušara - Milović, Vlatković - Miletić, Drašković - Nikač...
The last round on the program is tomorrow at 16 p.m.
Bonus video:
