PANAJI: A day after he played a marathon 98-move draw in a tiebreak rapid game to qualify for the third round of the World Cup, 19-year-old reigning world junior champion, Pranav V, made a ton of moves in his opening classical tie to take the lead against Lithuania’s Titas Stremavicius at the Resort Rio here on Friday.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW! While Pranav played a marathon 102-move game to prevail over Titas in the 5 hours, 36 minutes contest in the third-round opener, second seed Arjun Erigaisi and experienced Harikrishna Pentala won their respective games with white pieces on a day dominated by Indian masters.
Of the 10 Indian players competing in the third round, three — including Pranav, Arjun and Harikrishna — won their respective contests in contrasting fashion. The other seven drew their games.
The day began with third seed Praggnanandhaa R playing out a quick 30-move draw with black pieces against Armenia’s Robert Hovhannisyan. Eight minutes later, Harikrishna (2697 Elo) outplayed Belgium’s Daniel Dardha for a full point. Dardha’s 16th-move blunder was enough for Harikrishna to take his attacking weapons out, and he laid a trap with his bishop and queen by offering a rook sacrifice to force the Belgian GM to resign.
Arjun (2773 Elo) joined India’s victory parade when he took almost three hours and just 30 moves to score a full point against Uzbekistan’s Vokhidov Shamsiddin. Pranav was the last to finish the day’s proceedings.
In a French Defense game of the Tarrasch opening, Pranav utilised his opening advantage with white pieces well to first go a pawn up and gave a fine finish to the opening game after Titas made an inaccurate 75th move. Though the Lithuanian GM tried to fight for an hour, the couple of extra pawns for Pranav came in handy for the future India star.
The Indian trio of Pranav, Arjun and Harikrishna are just a draw away with their black pieces from qualifying for the fourth round of 32 players. Among the other Indian players, top seed D Gukesh drew with Germany’s Svane Frederik, while 19-year-old Pranesh M (2630 Elo) held higher-ranked Vincent Keymer of Germany (2755 Elo) to a draw while defending with black pieces.
The other three Indian GMs — Diptayan Ghosh, Narayanan SL and Karthik Venkataraman — also drew their respective games with white pieces against higher-ranked opponents.
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