PANJIM: 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 here on Saturday.
While most of the games in the 156 players contest selected for the first round went according to rankings, there were a few surprises that is typical of the knockout format of the world cup.
Four players, in fact, did not turn up to play and their opponents got walkovers. However those who ended up getting a free point were all higher ranked players and this would give them a free passage into the next round of this USD 2 million prize money tournament that in addition has three places reserved for the next candidates tournament.
The Indian elite, comprising World Champion D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, P Harikrishna, Vidit Gujrathi and Nihal Sarin, have all received direct entry into the second round, which will feature 128 players. Each round will follow a knockout format, with two classical games, and in case of a tie, games of shorter duration will decide the winner.