CHENNAI: After squandering his advantage and losing the first round, it was not a happy outing for India’s No 4, Vidit Gujrathi, as he went down to Iranian Parham Maghsoodloo in the second round on Wednesday, as the Chennai Grandmasters continued in the city.
On the next board, there was intense competition as two higher-ranked players in the tournament: Arjun Erigaisi was taking on United States’ Levon Aronian.
Arjun, playing white, opened with the Queen’s Pawn Opening, met by Levon’s response in the Indian Game. Levon adopted a solid defensive approach, which ultimately resulted in a draw. Both players were seen discussing the game in the lounge, pointing out several ‘missed chances’—which they hadn’t noticed during the game.
“Result-wise, the tournament has been good so far. Today was a shaky game for both of us. It looked worse for me at one point, and there was one move that I could have played better, but we both missed it, and it ended in a draw,” said Arjun, speaking to the media after the match.
In the remaining games of the Masters category, Aravindh Chithambaram and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave drew their bout in a tactical standoff, while Amin Tabatabaei scored a crucial win over Alexey Sarana.
The second round of the tournament saw four decisive results and four draws combined from both sections.
In the Challengers category, Tamil Nadu’s Vaishali, who suffered a defeat in the opening round, came back stronger in the second round with the white pieces and played a draw to earn her first points in the tournament against Raunak Sadhwani, the top-ranked player in the Challenger category.
Raunak, who defeated Karthikeyan in the opening round, thought he was “outprepared” in the second game against Vaishali, but he expressed confidence moving forward as he has one extra white in the remaining rounds.
Leon Mendonca, continuing his strong momentum in the tournament, scored a decisive win over Harika Dronavalli and emerged as a joint-leader in the Challengers category alongside V Pranav, who also won against Abhimanyu Puranik.
Arjun, Vachier-Lagrave, and Tabatabaei are tied in a three-way fight at the top of the Masters section.
Meanwhile, Vidit will look to turn his fortunes around and come back stronger in the third round when he faces Tamil Nadu’s Aravindh Chithambaram, who looks strong in the tournament after two draws.