6 months ago
3
Arjun Erigaisi | Photo Credit: P.K. Ajith Kumar
There were 206 of them. Now it is down to 32. The chess World Cup is moving towards its concern end, promising plentifulness of enactment connected the black-and-white squares.
After a day’s remainder – good earned by the players, galore of whom person had to spell done the nerve-wracking tie-breakers – the 4th circular gets underway astatine Resort Rio present connected Tuesday.
Among those 32 men isn’t the apical seed. D. Gukesh was ousted by Germany’s Frederik Svane successful the 3rd round. So, the miserable twelvemonth continues for the 19-year-old from Chennai. Not overmuch has gone close for him aft winning the World title past year.
He isn’t the lone large effect to accidental an aboriginal goodbye to the beaches of Goa, though. Anish Giri, Wesley So, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov – each among the apical 10 – person been knocked out.
The 2nd and 3rd seeds are inactive successful the hunt, however. Arjun Erigaisi and R. Praggnanandhaa person ever been India’s large hopes astatine this tournament. Their advancement has been successful contrasting styles, though: Praggnanandhaa has had to past immoderate anxious moments, but Arjun has been solid, winning his archetypal 3 classical games and past drafting the fourth.
And helium has to travel up with his best. Arjun needs to decorativeness wrong the apical 3 astatine the World Cup to entertain realistic hopes of making it to the Candidates, the lawsuit that volition determine Gukesh’s challenger for the adjacent World championship.
In the 4th round, helium faces the Hungarian seasoned Peter Leko, portion Pragganandhaa volition conscionable Russia’s Daniil Dubov. V. Pranav, P. Harikrishna and Karthik Venkataraman are the different Indians that person precocious to the 4th round. More was expected from the likes of Vidit Gujrathi, Nihal Sarin and Aravindh Chithambaram, who mislaid to Karthik successful the 2nd round.
Having said that, the knockout format is unforgiving, and it isn’t that astonishing that truthful galore seeds person already fallen. The remaining ones, including Vincent Keymer, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Richard Rapport and Levon Aronian, should cognize they person to beryllium cautious if they don’t privation to articulation that list.
The pairings (fourth round): Frederik Svane (Ger) v Shant Sargsyan (Arm); Peter Leko (Hun) v Arjun Erigaisi; R. Praggnanandhaa v Daniil Dubov (Rus); Matthias Bluebaum (Ger) v Alexander Donchenko (Ger); V. Pranav v Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb); Andrey Esipenko (Rus) v Vincent Keymer (Ger); Wei Yi (Chn) v Parham Maghsoodloo (Ira); Alexey Sarana (Srb) v Jose Martínez Alcantara (Mex); Nils Grandelius (Swe) v P. Harikrishna; Samuel Sevian (USA) v Lorenzo Lodici (Ita); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) v Aleksey Grebnev (Rus); Awonder Liang (USA) v Gabriel Sargissian (Arm); Le Quang Liem (Vie) v Karthik Venkataraman; Sam Shankland (USA) v Richard Rapport (Hun); Levon Aronian (USA) v Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Pol); Yu Yangyi (Chn) v Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb).
