Petrov and Kandić at the top of the table ahead of the final round

Montenegrin chess players Nikita Petrov and Milojko Kandić are at the top of the A and B table of the tournament, which is being played as part of the Montenegro Open in Budva.

Petrov took advantage of the opening move in his duel with Sai Krishna, who represents Canada.

The King's Indian Defense was played, and Petrov, with patient play, realized the advantage gained in the opening.

The two-time champion of Montenegro, after eight rounds, has 6,5 points.

The same performance was achieved by the tournament's top seed, Lorenzo Lodici from Italy, who defeated Davit Pogosyan from Armenia today, as well as Evgeniy Romanov, who outplayed Toms Kantans from Latvia.

The final round brings a duel between Romanov and Lodici, while Petrov will try to defeat Bulgarian grandmaster Kirill Georgiev with the black pieces.

After Petrov, the most successful Montenegrin representative is Denis Kadrić, who has 5,5 points, while the group of players with five points includes grandmasters: Luka Drašković, Nikola Đukić and Nebojša Nikčević, international master Blažo Kalezić, and FIDE masters Peko Đurović and Andrej Šuković and Andrej Skvorcov.

In the B tournament, Milojko Kandić took advantage of the opening move in the duel with Boris Krasin, and tied with Albania's representative Elvis Kola at the top of the table.

Kandić will expect a setback for Kola in the final round, given that the first criterion in the event of a tie is the mutual result, where Kola won.

In the upper part of the table, in seventh position, with six points, is the experienced Aleksandar Perošević, who after an initial defeat has recorded five wins and two draws.

The last round on the program is today at 13 pm, after which we will find out how the prize fund of a total of 42.000 euros will be distributed.

The organizer of the Montenegro Open, which brought together 270 players from 38 countries, is the Chess Federation of Montenegro, with the support of the Municipality of Budva, the Budva Riviera Hotel Group, and under the auspices of the Ministry of Sports and Youth and the World Chess Federation.