Bengaluru: At the end of two days and eleven rounds of rapid games, Arjun Erigaisi was the lone Indian to make the eight-man knockout of the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.
The world No 4 – who won three consecutive Freestyle Fridays before heading to Paris – finished fourth with 6.5/11 points while Ian Nepomniachtchi and Magnus Carlsen topped the round robin standings with 8.5/11 points.
In an earlier interaction with HT, Arjun spoke about following the Freestyle event in Weissenhaus that took place earlier this year (which he wasn’t a part of), closely and learning a fair deal by just watching the games.
The other three Indians — Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi and reigning world champion Gukesh — are out of running for the $2,00,000 top prize and will now play for the 9th-12th spot in classical matches starting on Wednesday.
Vidit, who flew to Paris days after his wedding, had a torrid outing, managing to win just two games out of 11 and found himself at the bottom of the 12-player round robin standings. He often found himself in promising positions, only to run into time trouble, make mistakes and end up in hot water. Gukesh, with three wins, finished the rapid stage just one spot above Vidit.
Round 9, which saw all four Indians losing their respective games, had Carlsen doing Carlsen things, throwing in a beautiful Queen sacrifice and turning around a worrisome position against Richard Rapport into a win. “At some point it felt like a repetition would be a nice conclusion after a crazy game but I thought let’s keep it going a little bit more,” Carlsen said.
“I didn’t think I was better but I also didn’t think I was running serious risks of losing there…It’s the kind of gamble you can make when you’re doing well in a tournament.”
For the classical format knockout that starts on Wednesday, players ranked 1-4 in the round robin can, in order, pick their opponent among players ranked from 5 through 8. The time control will be 90 minutes + 30-second increment per move.
Results (only Indians):
Round 7: R Praggnanandhaa lost to Gukesh; Nodirbek Abdusattorov lost to Arjun; Richard Rapport beat Vidit
Round 8: Vidit lost to Ian Nepomniachtchi; Arjun drew Rapport; Gukesh beat Vincent Keymer; Hikaru Nakamura drew Praggnanandhaa
Round 9: Praggnanandhaa lost to Fabiano Caruana; Nodirbek Abdusattorov beat Gukesh; Nepomniachtchi beat Arjun; Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beat Vidit
Round 10: Caruana lost to Vidit; Arjun drew Vachier-Lagrave; Gukesh lost to Rapport; Praggnanandhaa lost to Keymer
Round 11: Abdusattorov lost to Praggnanandhaa; Nepomniachtchi beat Gukesh; Vidit lost to Arjun
Top-8: Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Arjun, Abdusattorov, Nakamura, Keymer, Caruana
ENDS
