FIDE World Cup 2025: Praggnanandhaa survives scare; Arjun, Karthik, Harikrishna also draw first game of Rd 4
Indian Grandmasters Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa played out solid draws while P Harikrishna wriggled out of a difficult situation to head into a tie-break in the fourth round of the Chess World Cup, in Panjim on Wednesday.
Arjun Erigaisi will start as the favourite against veteran Hungarian Peter Leko, while R Praggnanandhaa faces the inventive Daniil Dubov.
Grandmasters Arjun Erigaisi and P Harikrishna had another good day as they sent veteran Peter Leko of Hungary and Swede Nils Grandelius packing in the fourth-round tiebreaker at the Chess World Cup, in Panaji on Thursday.
Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi bowed out of the World Chess Cup after a 2.5-3.5 loss to Sam Shankland of United States in the second set of tie-break games of third round, in Panjim on Sunday.
Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi will take on an in-form Levon Aronian of Armenia, while P Harikrishna will have to tackle giant-killer Jose Eduardo Martinez Alacantara of Mexico in the pre-quarterfinals of the World Cup in Panaji, Goa.
Grandmasters Raunak Sadhwani and S L Narayanan, India's two best hopes, were held to draws by Daniel Barrish of South Africa and Steven Salas Rojas of Peru in the first game of the opening round of World Chess Cup, in Panjim, on Saturday.
Harikrishna continued his success story with the seasoned Grandmaster, who famously assisted Gukesh in the World Championship title match, showcasing his skills as a brilliant attacker.
World champion D Gukesh bowed out of the Chess World Cup, losing the third-round match to Frederik Svane of Germany, while Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa made it to the last-32 stage, in Panjim on Saturday.
Defending champion and Grandmaster R Vaishali jumped into sole lead in the women's section
World Champion D Gukesh suffered his second straight defeat at the FIDE Grand Swiss, losing to Greece's Nikolas Theodorou in the sixth round in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Tuesday.
Praggnanandhaa completed a win to book a match against compatriot Erigaisi, making sure an Indian will feature in the semi-final.
After six draws in a row, Praggnanandhaa was relieved after the victory, a result of Gupta's blunder under time pressure.
16-year old Praggnanandhaa halted his three-match losing streak to shock the higher-rated Vidit Gujrathi
Gujrathi settled for a draw against Russia's Andrey Esipenko to stay in the lead with three points
Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi prevailed over Russia's Daniil Dubov in the third round to become the sole leader with 2.5 points in the prestigious Tata Steel Masters chess tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Erigaisi is currently in fifth place after eight rounds.
Carlsen, whose form has been up and down in the preliminary phase, took the fifth place with 26 points. He tripped Duda in the final round after settling for draws in rounds 13 and 14 against Daniel Naroditsky and Giri.
Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi drew with Richard Rapport of Hungary in the ninth round to be in joint third place with 5.5 points in the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Vidit Gujrathi suffers first defeat
India's Vidit Gujrathi drew with Jan-Krzysztof Duda of Poland to take his tally to four points after the sixth round of Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022.
The other five games, hard fought, were drawn. World No.1 Magnus Carlsen and Andrey Esipenko trail the leaders by half a point.
Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi held World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen to a draw in the 11th round of the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament
FIDE Master Girish A Koushik of India shot into the joint lead with Armenian Grandmaster Robert Hovhannisyan, with seven points, after defeating GM Nils Grandelius of Sweden in the eighth round of the 50th World Junior Chess Championships in Chennai on Wednesday. With this victory, Koushik earned a nine-game GM norm from the event and is well-placed to annex the title.
Anand played the Italian game with white pieces but could get little out of opening against Vituigov.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday.
Fabiano Caruana of United States made sure of his maiden title after beating Jan-Krzysztof Duda of Poland.
It took Gujrathi 40 moves to outwit Benjamin and now he shares the lead with six others. The fourth Indian to cross the 2700 ELO rating barrier, Gujrathi will face American Grandmaster Aleksandr Lenderman in the fifth round.
Five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand gave a fine endgame lesson to young Alireza Firouzja, jumping to joint sixth position at the end of 11th round of Tata Steel Masters, in Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands, on Saturday. With his second victory, Anand clawed his way back to a fifty percent score and will now hope to end the tournament on a high. At just 16 years, Firouzja is less than one third of Anand's age, and the Indian ace showed that the Iranian still has a lot to learn.
Alireza Firouzja remained in joint lead with Caruana on 5.5 points and these two are now ahead of Wesley So of United States and Jorden Van Foreest of Holland.
Anand has been trying to play very complicated positions and the sixth round was no different.
It was on move 21 that Giri thought he was out of trouble and proposed a draw.
The day produced four decisive games and it was again the youngsters who provided most of the entertainment.
Anand, as white, had simply an extra pawn and this is where the tenacity of Carlsen came to fore.
Anand moved to joint sixth spot with 2.5 points on a day that saw Firouzja Alireza scoring a sensational victory over super-solid Anish Giri of Holland.
Carlsen had previously indicated he would not consider the record truly broken until after two more games as he was not prepared to count two wins he had in the Norwegian league.
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand continued to struggle in his first open tournament in 23 years as he suffered a shock defeat at the hands of French Grandmaster Adrien Demuth in the fifth round of the masters section of Gibraltar chess festival in Gibraltar on Sunday.
Indian Grandmasters Vidit Gujarathi and Sahaj Grover maintained a clean slate, defeating Tomas Laurusas of Lithuania and Vyacheslav Lozhnikov of Kazakhstan respectively in the second round of the World Junior Chess Championship in Kocaeli, Turkey.
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