Arjun obtained an early advantage before breaking down his opponent Awonder’s defence in the opening round of the Quantbox Chennai Grandmasters chess tournament in Chennai on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: R. RAGU
Indian ace Arjun Erigaisi began his campaign in the Masters section of the Quantbox Chennai Grandmasters chess tournament here on Thursday with a win over American Awonder Liang. German Vincent Keymer posted the only other victory in the Masters event on the opening day of the tournament by getting the better of Indian’s Nihal Sarin.
The 21-year-old Arjun, playing with white pieces, obtained an early advantage before breaking down his opponent’s defence. The American fumbled in the middle game before resigning after his 49th move.
Good beginning…
Speaking after the match, the Indian GM said, “It’s nice to start with a win. But of course, the start doesn’t necessarily mean much because I had started well in my previous Classical tournament, but didn’t finish well.
Keymer and Nihal were involved in an exciting match with the German holding the aces for large parts. The 20-year-old Keymer took advantage of Nihal’s time trouble and took the full point when his opponent resigned after the 51st move.
“I think I was winning kind of completely, and then I messed it up even though I had like 20 minutes against zero. I thought it’s best not to get too low on time to not mess it up. But I messed it up exactly by not taking one more move of him,” he said.
Vidit Gujrathi managed to recover from an inferior position to share honours with Dutch GM Jorden van Foreest. The all-Indian battle between V. Pranav and Karthikeyan Murali ended in a stalemate after 44 moves while Anish Giri split the point with American Ray Robson.
Three on top
In the Challengers section, there were three decisive results — M. Pranesh defeated Aryan Chopra and Leon Luke Mendonca beat G.B. Harshavardhan, both with white pieces, while Diptayan Ghosh scored over D. Harika when playing with black pieces.
The results (first round): Masters: Arjun Erigaisi bt Awonder Liang (USA); V. Pranav drew with Karthikeyan Murali; Vincent Keymer (Ger) bt Nihal Sarin; Vidit Gujrathi drew with Jorden van Foreest (Ned); Anish Giri (Ned) drew with Ray Robson (USA).
Challengers: Leon Mendonca bt G.B. Harshavardhan; Abhimanyu Puranik drew with B. Adhiban; R. Vaishali drew with Pa. Iniyan; D. Harika lost to Dipatyan Ghosh; M. Pranesh bt Aryan Chopra.
Second round pairings: Masters: Karthikeyan vs. Liang, van Foreest vs. Arjun, Robson vs. Vidit, Nihal vs. Giri, Pranav vs. Keymer.
Challengers: Harshavardhan vs. Aryan, Dipatyan vs. Pranesh, Iniyan vs. Harika, Adhiban vs. Vaishali, Mendonca vs. Abhimanyu.
Published – August 07, 2025 10:24 pm IST
