Grabs pawn in unfinished game (7)
I believe the answer is:
pinches
'grabs' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with contact as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'pawn in unfinished game' is the wordplay.
'pawn' becomes 'p'.
'unfinished game' becomes 'ches' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'p'+'in'+'ches'='PINCHES'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for pinches that I've seen is " Grips tightly".)