Vidit lands a double blow to Nakamura, Gukesh draws Praggnanandhaa to stay in joint lead with Nepomniachtchi

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi is always a delight to watch when he gets going, and he livened up the proceedings in the 9th round of the FIDE Candidates Chess tournament to bring himself back in contention with yet another stunning victory over Hikaru Nakamura, the second-highest-rated player in fray. The much awaited tussle between India’s two prodigies D Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa was a hard fought draw, one which ensured that Gukesh holds onto the joint lead with Ian Nepomniachtchi, both having scored 5.5 points each.

Highest-rated player in fray, Fabiano Caruana of USA, was held to a draw by the lowest-rated player here, Nijat Abasov, while in another engrossing encounter, Alireza Firouzja failed to find the winning way against Nepomniachtchi, the game ending with the honours shared. An obviously pleased Vidit credited his victory to his team which was instrumental in lifting up his spirits after a disastrous loss yesterday against Gukesh in the 8th round.

The players are tightly bunched together with five more rounds remaining. Pragg is now in hot pursuit of the leaders, just half a point behind while Vidit, who has moved up in the standings along with Nakamura and Caruana (all scoring 4.5 points each), is trailing Pragg by half a point. Incidentally, Vidit, who landed a double blow to Nakamura earlier, also scored over him in the the first half of this elite eight-player Double Round Robin event. This was the only decisive game in this round.

Nakamura made his aggressive intentions clear against Vidit in an Italian game by advancing his King-side pawns early and even delayed castling. Trying to maintain momentum, another aggressive knight move on the 15th turn by Nakamura had Vidit focussing on the centre and the queen-side. Nakumura consumed precious time leading to inaccurate moves and soon Vidit’s queen, knight and rook snared Hikaru’s King in a checkmating net on the 36th turn. “My time usage was absolutely horrible and obviously I did not find the right moves” summed Nakamura.

The Gukesh-versus-Pragg affair began the Spanish way and was more an exhibition of solid play and the draw sealed on the 41st move without much fanfare.

Nepomniachtchi once again demonstrated his defensive skills to escape from what appeared a losing position against Alireza. Interestingly Alireza began with an obscure opening and managed to catch his opponent off guard to build an initiative on the king-side. Alireza’s pieces were gunning fire on the King side and Nepomniachtchi had to take his castled king all the way to the other end of the board to seek shelter. Alireza sacrificed an exchange to snare the king but Nepomniachtchi stubbornly held on to get a draw after 44 moves.

In the Women’s section Humpy held Kateryna Lagno to a draw even as Tan Zhongyi once again shot into sole lead with an emphatic victory against R Vaishali in a 21 move miniature game which incidentally was also the only decisive . Zhongyi has scored 6 points, Aleksandra Goryachkina and Lei Tingjie follows half a point behind. Kateryna has tallied 5 points while Humpy and Nurgyul Salimova follow behind with 4 points each.

Results of Round 9

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (4.5) bt Hikaru Nakamura (4.5);

D Gukesh (5.5) drew R Praggnanandhaa (5);

Alireza Firouzja (3.5) drew Ian Nepomniachtchi (5.5);

Nijat Abasov (3) drew Fabiano Caruana (4.5)

Women’s Results

Koneru Humpy (4) drew Kateryna Lagno (5); R Vaishali (2.5) lost to Tan Zhongyi (6) ; Lei Tingjie (5.5) drew Nurgyul Salimova (4); Anna Muzychuk (3.5) drew Aleksandra Goryachkina (5.5).