Chess: Raunak Sadhwani, 13, set to become India's 65th Grand Master

Even as Viswanathan Anand and B. Adhiban were battling on the leading boards, Sadhwani drew with Gabriel Sagrissian to take four points from seven rounds.

Raunak Sadhwani needs to show up for the remaining two rounds at the FIDE Swiss Grand Chess tournament to become India's 65th Grand Master.

Raunak Sadhwani is set to become country’s Grandmaster after continuing his spectacular unbeaten run in the FIDE Chess.com Grand Prix following a sixth successive draw on Thursday.

Even as Viswanathan Anand and B. Adhiban were battling on the leading boards, Sadhwani, 13, drew with Armenian Grandmaster Gabriel Sagrissian to take his tally to four points from seven rounds.

Sadhwani, with a rating of 2479, has already gained 23 points to cross the stipulated mark of 2500 in live ratings. Armed with two GM norms, the youngster needs to simply turn up for the next two rounds to gain his final GM norm!

READ | FIDE Grand Swiss Chess: Gujrathi, Adhiban lose in tough day for Indians

His current performance rating of a whopping 2731 is enough to give him the title-making norm, provided he does not receive a walkover in the next two rounds.

Meanwhile, Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian shared the lead with 5.5 points. Anand and Adhiban drew their games to stay in the joint 10th spot at 4.5 points. Third seed Wesley So defeated Surya Shekhar Ganguly to match the tally of the Indian duo.

On the lower boards, S. L. Narayanan, D. Gukesh and D. Harika won with black pieces. For an unbeaten Narayanan, this was his first win after six draws.

 

Seventh-round results (involving Indians):

Yuriy Kryvoruhko (Ukr, 4.5 drew with Viswanathan Anand (4.5); B. Adhiban (4.5) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 4.5); Wesley So (USA, 4.5) bt Surya Shekhar Ganguly (3.5); Vidit Gujrathi (4) drew with Alexey Sarana (Rus, 4); Raunak Sadhwani (4) drew with Gabriel Sargissian (Arm, 4); K. Sasikiran (3.5) lost to Aryan Tari (4.5); Ivan Cheparinov (4) drew with S. P. Sethuraman (4); P. Hari Krishna (3.5) drew with Abhimanyu Puranik (4); Nihal Sarin (3.5) drew with Etienne Bacrot (Fra, 3.5); Anton Demchenko (Rus, 3) lost to S. L. Narayanan (4); Axel Bachmann (Par, 2.5) lost to D. Gukesh (3.5); Mircea-Emilian Parligras (Rom, 2.5) lost to D. Harika (3.5); Elina Danielian (Arm, 3) bt Prithu Gupta (2); Soumya Swaminathan (3) bt Pia Cramling (Swe, 2).