Abdusattorov Nodirbek leads, Magnus Carlsen close behind in India Open chess

KOLKATA: Uzbekistan’s youngster Abdusattorov Nodirbek emerged the sole leader on Day I of Tata Steel India Open Rapid and Blitz meet at the end of first three rounds of the rapid competition here on Wednesday.

In the women’s section, India’s Vantika Agrawal shared the lead with Aleksandra Goryachkina and Kateryna Lagno, each scoring two points from three rounds.

It was a poor day for India in the open section where — saving SL Narayanan — Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi and Nihal Sarin all struggled a bit. While Narayanan with two points shared the second spot with Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So, Nihal and Arjun stayed on 1.5 points each.

Vidit was lying at the bottom of the table with just one draw with Arjun. The Nashik boy lost his opening match against So and Carlsen in the last round.

The Norwegian got only one win in the day before drawing with Praggnanandhaa and Nihal. Arjun, coming on the back of a good show in the Chennai GM meet, drew all his three games of the day against his Indian mates Nihal, Vidit and Narayanan.

Vantika opened with a win against Valentina Gunina and then drew her next two matches against Alexandra Kosteniuk and Nana Dzagnidze. Like her brother Praggnanandhaa, R Vaishali too went winless in the day managing two draws and suffering one loss.

India’s highest rated women’s player Koneru Humpy drew all her three games to stay in the hunt with 1.5 points. A win eluded another Indian youngster Divya Deshmukh who too had to be content with draws in all her three games.


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