Indian Grandmaster Vidit Santosh Gujrathi defeated Daniil Dubov of Russia in the third round to become the only leader with 2.5 points in the prestigious Tata Steel Masters chess tournament.
Gujarati compatriot, 16-year-old Rameshbabu Pragnananda, however, suffered a loss at the hands of Dutchman Jordan Van Forrest late on Monday night.
In addition to van Forrest, Andrey Esipenko and Richard Rapport also won and are now sitting on two points with world number 1 Magnus Carlsen and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who drew their games.
In the Gujrati-Dubov match, the Russian, true to his creative style, introduced a novelty in the Italian opening by introducing move 8.
The Indian GM took a risky approach, first trading his dark-square bishop and then accepting a central pawn sacrifice.
As a result, he lags behind in development, while Black’s king is stuck in the center.
Gujrati took advantage of an error by Dubov on move 32 and scored a point.
My proudest defensive effort. Series of moves only! , pic.twitter.com/Y710Tv3lPT
– Vidit Gujarati (idviditchess) 17 January 2022
One Forest surprised Pragyananand with a rare line and put serious pressure on the black side. Pragyananand held on to a point before the Dutchman gained the upper hand to secure the victory.
Carlsen showed resilience to share the point with Poland’s Jan-Krzysztof Duda, while Dutch star Anish Giri drew with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.
Later in the fourth round to be played on Tuesday night, Gujrati faced Espinenko and Pragyananand faced Nils Grandelius of Sweden in a 13-round championship.
Meanwhile, in the Simultaneous Challenger event, Indian GM Arjun Arigasi defeated Belgium’s Daniel Dardha in the third round to share the joint top spot with two others – Thai Dai Van Nguyen (Czech Republic) and Voloder Murzin (Russia). – Scored 2.5. numbers.
Another Indian general manager Surya Shekhar Ganguly was drawn by Max Warmerdam of the Netherlands and has two points from three rounds.
Standings after Round 3: Masters: 1. Vidit Gujrathi 2.5 points; 2-6. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Magnus Kelsen, Richard Rapport, Andrey Esipenko and Jordan van Forrest 2; 7-8. Fabiano Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 1.5; 9-13. Sam Shankland, Sergey Karjakin, Daniel Dubov, Anish Giri, Pragnananda 1; 14. Nils Grandelius 0.5.
,