Levon Aronian stopped Arjun Erigaisi’s brilliant run after bouncing back from deficit for a 2.5-1.5 triumph in their quarterfinals of the FTX Road to Miami online rapid chess tournament on Thursday.
The 18-year old Indian won the first game, let go of an advantageous position in the second for a draw before Aronian hit back to win two games to enter the semifinals.
In fact, the fourth game appeared to be headed for a draw and the resultant blitz-tie-breaker, but Arjun faltered in the endgame involving queens and pawns.
In the other quarterfinals, Wei Yi brought down league winner Samuel Sevian 1.5-0.5 in the blitz tie-breaker after hitting back to tie the rapid game 2-2, Jan-Krzysztof Duda beat Anish Giri 2.5-1.5 and Richard Rapport blanked Jeffery Xiong 2-0 in blitz after the players were tied 2-2 in their rapid games.
Gukesh closer to 2700 rating mark
D. Gukesh, involved in a close race with good friend Arjun Erigaisi to reach the 2700-rating mark, moved closer to the coveted number by beating World rapid champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the first round of the classical time-format clash in the Biel Grandmaster Triathlon in Biel, Switzerland, on Thursday.
The 47-move victory with black pieces over the young Uzbek rated 2688, earned Gukesh 5.1 rating points. This raised the 16-year-old's live rating to 2698.7 and world ranking to 39th.
The country’s youngest Grandmaster is due to play Azerbaijan’s Arkadij Naiditsch (2668) next.
So far, only four Indians - Viswanathan Anand, P. Harikrishna, Vidit Gujrathi and K. Sasikiran - have crossed the 2700-mark in ratings.
Arjun Erigaisi (live rating of 2689) appeared the next in line but Gukesh surged ahead by gaining 15 points, so far this month. The eight-player field plays in three formats and performances count towards the final score.
The seven-round rapid phase earned the players two points for a win and one for a draw. The classical format offers four for a win and 1.5 for a draw. After three rounds of classical games, the action will move to double-round blitz encounters before returning to the classical format for the last four days.
Comments
Follow Us
SHARE