Negi goes down to Tomashevsky

With his second loss in as many games, the Indian who is the second youngest Grandmaster ever in the history of the game, is last in the 10-player field as of now. In the first round, Parimarjan had lost to Maxim Rodshtein of Israel.

Russia’s Tomashevsky emerged as joint leader on 1.5 points along with Rodshtein and Wesley So of Philippines on a day that saw the other four games reaching peaceful draws albeit after tough fights and high quality games.

Top seeded Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, Fabiano Caruana of Italy, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam, Anish Giri of Holland and Dmitry Andreikin of Russia share the third spot on one point each having drawn both games played so far while David Howell of England is sole ninth after he opened his account with a draw.

Tomashevsky went for one of the topical variations in the Queen’s Gambit declined and as early as on the 10th move that Parimarjan came up with a new idea and equalised subsequently.

It was a long a slow grind in the final stages that saw Tomashevsky securing the full point in 94 moves.

Results (round 2): Evgeny Tomashevsky (Rus, 1.5) bt Parimarjan Negi (Ind, 0); Wesley So (Phi, 1.5) drew Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 1); Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 1) drew Maxim Rodshtein (Isr, 1.5); Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (Vie, 1) drew David Howell (Eng, 0.5); Anish Giri (Ned, 1) drew Dmitry Andreikin (Rus, 1).