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IMAGE: Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi did try to find some flaws in black’s position but decided against any undue risk and repeated the position three times. Photograph: Michal Walusza/FIDE
Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi was held to a draw by 12-year-old Argentine sensation Oro Faustino in the first game of the second round of the FIDE World Cup in Panjim on Tuesday.
Called the ‘Messi of Chess’ back home due to his extraordinary talent and rapid rise in the sport, Faustino, who famously defeated higher ranked Ante Brkic of Croatia in the opener, came up with another impressive performance with his black pieces.
The Argentine prodigy started off with the Berlin defense and Gujrathi went for the middle game which gave an easy equality to Faustino. The Indian did try to find some flaws in black’s position but decided against any undue risk and repeated the position three times.
The game lasted 28 moves.
In the return game under Classical time format, Gujrathi will play with the black pieces on Wednesday and if the deadlock continues, the players will play games under shorter duration to determine the winner.
This is Gujrathi’s last attempt to find a place in the Candidates tournament of 2026 for which the top three from here would qualify.
Levon Aronian continued with the good touch he has been displaying recently and defeated young Grandmaster Aronyak Ghosh with white pieces.
Indian results round 2 game 1: D Gukesh Nogerbek Kazybek (Kaz); Martin Petrov (Bul) Arjun Erigaisi; R Praggnanandhaa Temur Kuybokarov (Aus); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) beat Surya Shekhar Ganguly; Diptayan Ghosh Ian Nepomniachtchi (Fid); Levon Aronian (Usa) beat Aronyak Ghosh; Vidit Santosh Gujrathi drew with Oro Faustino (Arg); Karthik Venkataraman Aravindh Chithambaram; Kourkoulos-Arditis Stamatis (Gre) Nihal Sarin; Nesterov Arseniy(Fid) P Harikrishna; Nguyen Thai Dai Van (Cze) Pa Iniyan; Idani Pouya (Iri) Murali Karthikeyan; S L Narayanan drew with Nikita Vitiugov (Eng); Dmitrij Kollars (Ger) M Pranesh; Aryan Tari (Nor) V Pranav; Robert Hovhannisyan (Arm) Raunak Sadhwani.
