FIDE Grand Swiss: Nihal Sarin holds World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana

D. Gukesh, country’s youngest Grandmaster, held former World junior champion Parham Maghsoodhoo to join Nihal at 1.5 points.

Nihal Sarin held top seed Fabiano Caruana at the FIDE Grand Swiss in Riga, Latvia on Thursday.

Nihal Sarin held World No. 2 and top seed Fabiano Caruana as Indian youngters dominated in the second round of the FIDE Grand Swiss in Riga, Latvia, on Thursday.

D. Gukesh, country’s youngest Grandmaster, held former World junior champion Parham Maghsoodhoo to join Nihal at 1.5 points.

For the second successive day, youngster Arjun Erigaisi punched above his weight to hold eighth seeded Russian talent Daniil Dubov.

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However, seventh seed P. Hari Krishna lost to veteran Aleksey Dreev  while K. Sasikiran scored over Uzbekistan's  Shamsiddin Vokhidov.

Among the women, D. Harika defeated teammate Divya Deshmukh and notably, Padmini Rout defeated veteran Pia Cramling.

The results (second round):

Open: Nihal Sarin (1.5) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA, 1.5); Parham Maghsoodhoo (Iri, 1.5) drew with D. Gukesh (1.5); Aleksey Dreev (Rus, 1.5) bt P. Harikrishna (0) Sethuraman (1) drew with Gabriel Sargissian (Arm, 1); Sanan Sjugirov (Rus, 1.5) drew with Raunak Sadhwani (0.5); Ivan Cheparinov (Bul, 1) drew with Surya Shekar Ganguly (1); K. Sasikiran (1.5) bt Shamisiddin Vokhidov (Uzb, 0.5).

Women: R. Vaishali (1) lost to Nino Batsiashvili (Geo); Divya Deshmukh (0.5) lost to D. Harika (1.5); Meri Arabidze (Geo, 1) drew with Vantika Agarwal  (1); Pia Cramling (Swe, 0) lost to Padmini Rout (1).