Indians close opening rounds with a draw

TORONTO: Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa overcame some tense moments before settling for a draw against France’s Firouza Alireza while D Gukesh could do little against compatriot Vidit Gujrathi and shared the spoils in the first round of the Candidates chess tournament here.

It was a quiet start as all four games in the men’s section ended in draws while in the women’s event Zhongyi Tan drew the first blood at the expense of compatriot Tingjie Lei with the remaining three games ending in draws.

India’s R Vaishali played out a draw against countrymate Koneru Humpy, Russians Aleksandra Goryachkina and Kateryna Lagno signed peace while the lowest ranked and only non-Grandmaster Nurgyul Salimova of Bulgaria had a good start holding Anna Muzychuk to a draw.

In the men’s section the all-American battle between Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura also ended in a draw while Nijat Abasov of Azerbaijan started off with an easy draw as white against Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia. The opening surprises hold a key point in everyone’s preparation for a tournament like the Candidates and the opener was not devoid of it. Praggnanandhaa sprang the first one going for the open Ruy Lopez as black against Alireza.

However as it turned out, the open centre gave enough counterplay and the game took a sharp turn when Alireza went for a pawn sacrifice on move 29 and followed it up with a knight sacrifice on the next turn.

Praggnanandhaa had to find the only possible defence which the Indian did in quick time. The game was drawn vide repetition on move 39.

Another game to end through repetition of moves was between Gukesh and Gujrathi.

Gukesh was up against the Tarrasch defence which does not find many takers at the highest level. Gujrathi kept looking for his chances in a balanced position and came up with a spectacular Bishop sacrifice on the 17th move. Gukesh immediately figured that accepting the Bishop would be fatal and went for a forced repetition. “I had not seen the Bishop sacrifice coming,” Gukesh said after the game.