Chess World Cup | Arjun registers win; Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa held

Fans queued up to take a look on the younger superstars of Indian chess at Resort Rio right here on Tuesday. That queue, to see the likes of D. Gukesh, R. Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi, is getting longer, and longer, reflecting not simply the newer heights they proceed to scale, however the fast improve in reputation of the thoughts recreation.

Among India’s terrific trio, the highest three seeds on the World Cup, solely second-seeded Arjun was in a position to put up a win. Top seed Gukesh and the No. 3 seed R. Praggnanandhaa needed to accept attracts. That means, they need to win on Wednesday to advance to the third spherical with out having to play the tie-breaker video games.

On the highest board, Gukesh, who had white items, was made to play 84 strikes by Kazakhstan’s Kazybek Nogerbek. The recreation, that includes a rook-and-minor-piece ending, went all the best way, in truth, with simply two kings remaining on the board.

On the third board, Praggnanandhaa, who was the runner-up within the final version of the match, was held by Temur Kuybokarov of Australia, for whom it was a superb end result with black items. On the second board, nonetheless, white prevailed, with Arjun cruising to a 37-move victory over Bulgaria’s Martin Petrov.

Arjun was the one one to get a win among the many prime seeds. Dutchman Anish Giri and American Wesley So, seeded fourth and fifth, have been held by Bojan Maksimovic (Bosnia) and Titas Stremavicius (Lithuania).

Besides Arjun, V. Pranav was the one Indian to put up a win on the day. He defeated Norway’s Aryan Tari.

Important outcomes (second spherical): D. Gukesh drew with Kazybek Nogerbek (Kaz); Martin Petrov (Bul) misplaced to Arjun Erigaisi; R. Praggnanandhaa drew with Temur Kuybokarov (Aus); Bojan Maksimovic (Bih) drew with Anish Giri (Ned); Wesley So (USA) drew with Titas Stremavicius (Lit); Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze) bt Grergely Kantor (Hun); Dennis Makhnev (Kaz) drew with Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb); Vladislav Kovalev (Blr) misplaced to Vincent Keymer (Ger); Wei Yi (Chn) bt Kacper Piorun (Pol); Lorenzo Lodici (Ita) drew with Hans Niemann (USA); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) bt Surya Shekhar Ganguly; Lorenzo Luis Supi (Bra) misplaced to Richard Rapport (Hun); Le Quang Liem (Vie) drew with Baadur Jobava (Geo); Levon Aronian (USA) bt Aronyak Ghosh; Lorenzo Lodici (Ita) drew with Hans Niemann (USA); Diptayan Ghosh drew with Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus).

Vidit Gujrathi drew with Faustino Oro (Arg); Karthik Venkataraman drew with Aravindh Chithambaram; Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (Gre) drew with Nihal Sarin; Aryan Tari (Nor) misplaced to V. Pranav; Rasmus Svane (Ger) drew with P. Harikrishna; Dmitrij Kollars (Ger) drew with M. Pranesh; Thai Dai Van Nguyen (Cze) drew with Pa. Iniyan; Pouya Idani (Ira) drew with Karthikeyan Murali. Hovhannisyan (Arm) drew with Raunak Sadhwani.