Apr 10, 2025 11:35 PM IST
The world No.4’s loss brought an end to Indian challenge for the top prize in the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour
Bengaluru: Arjun Erigaisi couldn’t salvage the game this time around. After managing to draw Game 1 from a difficult position, the Indian was outplayed by world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura in their second classical quarterfinal knockout match-up on Thursday.
The world No 4’s loss effectively means no Indian player will be in contention for the $200,000 top prize in the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.
“For better or worse, he’s (Arjun) gained a lot of rating in open tournaments and I think that worked against him specifically in this game because I felt that at one point he should have sensed the danger and tried to make a draw,” Nakamura said on the Chessbase India stream. “But I felt like he was treating it like some open tournament and me like some 2600 player where you keep the game going and think your opponent’s going to blunder… and it just got really very bad.”
“My general sense about these kids is that they’re all very talented but I feel like they’re all trying to play like Magnus, where they keep the game going. In a lot of cases they’re not picking the moments, they’re just automatically doing it. If they continue to improve they will learn to pick the moments where you have to just kill the game and make a draw versus the ones where you keep pushing towards the end. That will make a huge difference.”
Earlier on Thursday evening, Fabiano Caruana was the first player among the pool of quarterfinalists to find a place in the semi-finals with a win over Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
He will face world No 1 Magnus Carlsen next, who fashioned a miraculous escape after finding himself on the ropes for the greater part of his game against Nodirbek Abdusattorov. Asked if he attributed his struggles early in the game to the starting position, Carlsen cracked a smile and self-effacingly pinned it down to a “skill issue.” “Right now, I just can’t figure it (Freestyle) out. That’s the beauty of the game. It’s supposed to be hard.”
The quarterfinal between Vincent Keymer and Ian Nepomniachtchi ended in a second consecutive drawn classical game. The young German, who won the Weissenhaus leg of Freestyle Chess in February, went on to take down Nepomniachtchi in a two-game rapid (10 + 10 time control) playoff.
The second game of the 9-12th place encounters ended in draws, which was all Praggnanandhaa R and Richard Rapport needed to win their respective matches against Vidit Gujrathi and reigning world champion Gukesh D since they both had already won Game 1. Rapport will play Praggnanandhaa for the 9th-10th place match-up.
