Chennai Grand Masters: TN’s Pranav stays unbeaten; Arjun goes top of Masters

CHENNAI: It seems no one can find a way to beat the 18-year-old Grandmaster Pranav as he continues to dominate the field in the Challengers category and secured his fourth outright victory in the ongoing Chennai Grand Masters here on Friday.

Pranav, playing with black pieces, sacrificed his Queen early, taking away Vaishali’s corresponding piece, which he felt was a “good opening” to start with.

“I got a very good position out of the opening, but I messed up a little bit in the middle. It was the same as the other games where I was just going down in the end game. But in the end she made some mistakes and that helped my case,” said Pranav, speaking to DT Next after his win.

With this win, he continues to be the sole leader in the Challengers category. And on the other side, Arjun Erigaisi leapfrogged Amin Tabatabaei to top the charts in the Masters.

Every move Arjun makes now feels like a masterstroke, as if Stockfish itself were his personal assistant. In a battle of the table-toppers, Arjun emerged victorious, accumulating 3.5 points overall and continued his unbeaten run.

As for the rest in the Masters category, Vidit Gujrathi and Aravindh Chithambaram held Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Levon Aronian respectively to stalemates, while Parham Maghsoodloo and Alexey Sarana, too, played out a draw.

Elsewhere in the Challengers section, TN’s Pranesh, who defeated Vaishali in the previous round, drew against Raunak Sadhwani.

“I didn’t get anything special from the opening and I didn’t see a way to continue the game, so I had to change all the pieces. Because if I don’t take the C8 bishop, the opening was just getting worse because of the bishop pair, so I took it and it was a draw in the end,” said Raunak after the draw.

Leon Mendonca and Abhimanyu Puranik also played out a balanced draw in Challengers.

Another Tamil Nadu player who had a good day after two losses and a draw was Karthikeyan Murali, who defeated Harika Dronavalli in the fourth round.

“I think she (Harika) played bishop d5 which was a mistake, instead she should have just castled which would’ve made it an equal position,” said Karthikeyan.