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Hikaru Nakamura Downs Arjun Erigaisi To Reach Freestyle Chess Grand Tour Paris Semis

Meanwhile in the fight for the 9th to 12th spot, world champion D Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi drew against Richard Rapport of Hungary and R Praggnanandhaa respectively and are now going to fight for the last two place

Arjun Erigaisi third round of Chennai Chess Grand Masters.
India's Arjun Erigaisi in action during the third round of Chennai Chess Grand Masters. Photo: Special Arrangement
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Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi tried hard but succumbed to Hikaru Nakamura's experience as the American won handsomely to proceed to the last-four of the Freestyle chess tournament on Thursday. (More Chess News)

Magnus Carlsen of Norway needed a draw to proceed to the next stage against Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan and the world No.1 achieved just that to move into the last-four stage along side Fabiano Caruana of the United States, who came up with a fine effort to crash through the defences of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France.

In the other quarterfinal matches, Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi drew with Vincent Keymer, forcing the match into a tie-break where the fortunes of both the players hang.

It may be recalled that Keymer beat a star-studded field to emerge winner of the first edition in Weissenhaus, Germany in February.

Meanwhile in the fight for the 9th to 12th spot, world champion D Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi drew against Richard Rapport of Hungary and R Praggnanandhaa respectively and are now going to fight for the last two place.

Praggnanandhaa will take on Rapport for a chance to finish in ninth spot.

Erigaisi got a good chance in the middle game against Nakamura when he could have seized the initiative with a knight manoeuvre.

However, once that was missed, Nakamura cashed in on every opportunity that came his way. In the end, the Indian was left with a couple of pawns less. When the exchange of queens became imminent, Erigaisi called it a day. The game lasted 62 moves.

Shuffling of the pieces at the start is slowly but surely becoming Carlsen's forte. The Norwegian did well in the middle game after a tentative opening but the position looked for a long time coming out of the Freestyle version where the pieces are set up randomly right before the start of the game.

Carlsen came up with a fine exchange sacrifice maintaining parity, and after 49 moves the draw was a just result giving the best player in the world a deserving 1.5-0.5 victory.

It may be interesting to note that Carlsen could have chosen Caruana or Nakamura as his opponent but he went for Abdusattorov.

Praggnanandhaa also needed a draw with Gujrathi and achieved it without much ado even as the latter tried to pose some initial threats.

Praggnanandhaa exchanged pieces at will and forced Gujrathi to go for a perpetual check once the dust cleared.

Gukesh's struggle in this version of the game continued as he could not make use of a promising position to force the match into a tiebreaker. Gukesh had two bishops against two knights in the middle game and looked in control but as the game progressed, the Indian missed the thread and had to settle for a draw.

Result Game 2 (Quarterfinals with final result): Arjun Erigaisi (Ind) lost to Hikaru Nakamura (USA) 0.5-1.5; Fabiano Caruana (USA) beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) 1.5-0.5; Magnus Carlsen (Nor) drew with Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb) 1.5-05; Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus) drew with Vincent Keymer (Ger) 1-1 goes to tiebreak.

9-12 place: R Praggnanandhaa (Ind) beat Vidit Gujrathi (Ind) 1.5-0.5; Richard Rapport (Hun) beat D Gukesh (Ind) 1.5-0.5.

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