World Rapid Chess Championship 2023: Arjun, Vidit among leaders in open section; Vaishali shares second spot in women’s

World Rapid Chess Championship 2023: Magnus Carlsen, the World No. 1 and reigning champion, started with a draw but won the rest of the games to be part of the five-player leaders’ group.

India’s Arjun Erigaisi in action at the 2023 World Rapid Chess Championship. | Photo Credit: FIDE/Lennart Ootes

Vidit Gujrathi and Arjun Erigaisi won four out of five rounds to be among the leaders at the end of an action-packed opening day of the 13-round World Rapid Chess Championship in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Tuesday.

Magnus Carlsen, the World No. 1 and reigning champion, started with a draw but won the rest of the games to be part of the five-player leaders’ group. Others are Bulgaria’s Ivan Cheparinov and China’s Yu Yangyi. The Chinese beat S. L. Narayanan in the day’s final round.

H. S. Bharath, seeded a distant 114, proved the surprise of the day when he stayed unbeaten against five higher-rated rivals to hold the sixth spot in a field of 202 players. The youngster, rated 2426, scored over Germany’s Vincent Keymer (2631), Chile’s Cristobal Henriquez Villagra (2590), China’s Xu Xiangyu (2598), drew with joint leader Cheparinov (2618) and Slovani’s Vladimir Fedoseev.

In the 11-round women’s section, R. Vaishali continued her good form and shared the second spot at 3.5 points from four rounds. Bulgarian Nurgyul Salimova and China’s Zhu Jiner shared the lead with an all-win sequence.

In this format, players get 15 minutes on the clock plus a 10-second increment per move for each game.

Standing (Indians) after Day 1:

Open (after five rounds): 2. Arjun Erigaisi (4.5), 5. Vidit Gujrathi (4.5), 6. S. H. Bharath (4), 16. Sandipan Chanda (4), 20. Nihal Sarin (3.5), 21. S. L. Narayanan (3.5), 33. M. Pranesh (3.5), 36. R. Praggnanandhaa (3.5), 61. Aravindh Chithambaram (3), 71. D. Gukesh (3), 83. B. Adhiban (3), 87. Mitrabha Guha (2.5), 103. Karthik Venkataraman (2.5), 105. V. Pranav (2.5), 116. Aditya Mittal (2.5), 143. Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2), 159. Raunak Sadhwani (2),

Women (after four rounds): 6. R. Vaishali (3.5 points), 15. K. Humpy (3), 19. Padmini Rout (3), 42. Soumya Swaminathan (2.5), 48. D. Harika (2), 55. Divya Deshmukh (2), 56. Rakshitta Ravi (2), 61. N. Priyanka (2), 68. M. Varshini Sahiti (2), 69. V. Sarayu (2), 80. B. Savitha Shri (1.5).