World junior champion V Pranav and the highest rated Indian, Grandmaster (GM) Arjun Erigasi pounced on the error from their respective opponents to win with black pieces, while Vidit Gujrathi survived a scare against the tournament’s youngest player in the first game of Round 2 in the FIDE World Cup here on Tuesday.
In a battle of two young stars, Pranav defeated Norway’s GM Aryan Tari in 41 moves while Arjun got the better of Martin Petrov of Bulgaria in 37 moves and will be favourites to advance as they play white in the second game.
The FIDE World Cup is played as a single-elimination knock-out tournament with 206 players from 82 countries vying for the coveted Viswanathan Anand Cup, named after the Indian legend. A total of 17 Indian players are in the fray in Round 2 with eight of them, ranked among the top-50, starting their campaign after a bye in the opening round.
Arjun was the first among them to bag the full point despite a spirited fight from Petrov. The Indian kept up the pressure in the middle game and then took advantage of the Bulgarian’s slightly erroneous move to win the game.
“Today, it was an interesting game. It was a tense middle game battle but starting from b4 he started to drift a bit and I think I managed to make full use of it,” said Arjun after the match.
On another board, Aryan Tari and Pranav were locked in a dodged battle before the former opened up the board for the Indian on the 40th move by advancing his pawn on g4 and Pranav went for the kill. While Arjun and Pranav celebrated a win, Vidit did well to dig himself out of the time pressure hole to split points against Argentinian prodigy IM Faustino Oro. The 31-year-old, playing white, Indian had just 38 minutes on the clock after 11 moves and looked under pressure as his 12-year-old opponent played with confidence.
However, Oro tried to play safe by moving his rook away from the attacking line and gave Vidit an opportunity to save the day and draw by repetition after 28 moves and will now be favourites to advance to the next round as they play white in the second game.
Among other Indians in the fray, GM Diptayan Ghosh did well to hold the experienced GM Ian Nepomniachtchi to a draw with white pieces while GM Gukesh D, GM R Praggnanandhaa, GM P Harikrishna and GM Narayanan SL also split the point with their respective opponents.
Also read: Narayanan, Diptayan, Aronyak reach FIDE World Cup Round 2
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