The other five games, hard fought, were drawn. World No.1 Magnus Carlsen and Andrey Esipenko trail the leaders by half a point.
Teenaged Grandmaster D Gukesh shocked world number 5 Fabiano Caruana as India 'B' pulled off a superb 3-1 win over number 2 seeds USA in the eighth round of the Open section of the 44th Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram, Chennai on Saturday.
After a win over Hikaru Nakamura in his opener, the Norwegian went down to Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi in the second round. A draw with Wesley So in the third left the world no.1 in fifth spot.
Indian Grandmasters Vidit Gujrathi, Pentala Harikrishna and teen prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa took a big step towards a spot in the fourth round of FIDE Chess World Cup in Sochi
He finished 11th in the standings with 19 points with the top eight going through to the knockout phase at the ongoing Airthings Masters.
The game incidentally was an old Sicilian where Shirov tried an unconventional ninth move.
Former World champion Viswanathan Anand played out a draw against Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik in the second game of their four-game match for the Sparkassen Trophy in Dortmund on Thursday.
Since 2012, 44 Indians have been anointed as grandmasters -- the highest achievement in chess, points out Arvind Subramanian, economist and former chief economic adviser to the government.
India's Dronavalli Harika defeated former world champion Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria in the third round of the FIDE Grand Swiss chess tournament in Riga to grab a share of the lead.
India's chess ace Dronavalli Harika was among the several players who were allegedly sent sexually abusive mail during an event in Latvia in November last year.
His semifinal match against Giri went up to 2am and a few hours later, he had to be at his school to take his 11th-class board examination.
The experienced Pentala Harikrishna accepted a draw against lower-rated Constantin Lupulescu of Romania to advance to round four at the FIDE Chess World Cup.
Chess champion Koneru Humpy has been nominated for the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award
Former World champion Viswanathan Anand and India cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal among others took part in an online chess charity event, raising Rs 8.8 lakh for the waste pickers' community fighting the coronavirus pandemic. "Chess For Charity", held on Saturday on chess.com, saw India No.1 Anand, No. 2 Vidit Gujrathi, Grandmaster Nihal Sarin, Woman Grandmaster Tania Sachdev and Croatia's Antonio Radic take on a team of comedians comprising Biswa Kalyan Rath, Samay Raina, Abhishek Upamanyu and Aakash Mehta.
Top-seed Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia) led the field at the end of the Rapid with 11 points. He is followed by Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Duda and Saric on 10 points.
It took Gujrathi 40 moves to outwit Benjamin and now he shares the lead with six others. The fourth Indian to cross the 2700 ELO rating barrier, Gujrathi will face American Grandmaster Aleksandr Lenderman in the fifth round.
Young Indian Grandmaster Vaishali Rameshbabu on Thursday beat International Master Munkhzul Turmunkh of Mongolia to storm into the semi-finals of the first leg of FIDE chess.com Women Speed Chess Championships but the country's top player Koneru Humpy bowed out in the opener.
Avinash Sable's national mark headlines strong showing in IGP 2
FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich said the chess world was moving online which would help the sport reach its full potential.
Adhiban will face the winner of the match between Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Alexander Fier, who play the tiebreak on Saturday.
Vidyut Jammwal's reality show is certainly worth a watch, observes Namrata Thakker.
'I was faced with a choice: quit my job or move to where I am valued.'
Vaishali, sister of the Indian chess prodigy and GM R Praggnanandhaa, scored impressive victories over Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) and Russia's Valentina Gunina on the opening day of the Blitz championship.
From a life built on challenges and studded with victories, India's beloved chess champion, Vishwanathan Anand plucks out a few important lessons.
Both Harikrishna and Carlsen drew all their four games on the opening day of the tournament as matches ended late on Saturday.
Former World champion Viswanathan Anand struggled for the second day running as he was held to a draw by almost-retired Robert Hess of the United States in the second round of Isle of Man International Chess tournament.
Nihal Sarin closes in on final Grandmaster norm
Mahi, Palak and 2 other Indians enter final at Asian Youth & Junior Boxing C'ships
Nihal scored his third and final GM norm at the Abu Dhabi Masters that was held from August 7 to 15. He scored 5.5 points in nine rounds with four wins, three draws, and two losses.
'The win will change a lot of things in Praggu... the confidence in his potential will be one of them. The win has ensured a lot of visibility which will give him a lot of opportunities.'
'Even if you admire all the girls who have come before you -- from Sushmita Sen, Aishwarya Rai, me, Priyanka Chopra, Dia Mirza -- it is very important to retain your own personality.' 'All of us won because we were very individually different people.'
Vaishali fell behind early and could not catch up against Gunina, who had finished runner-up in the first leg.
Indian Grandmasters Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Adhiban Baskaran registered wins in the first game of the two-game mini match in the second round of the FIDE chess World Cup in Sochi on Thursday.
Young Indian Grandmaster Vaishali Rameshbabu's fine run in the first leg of FIDE chess.com Women Speed Chess Championships ended on Friday with a defeat in the semi-finals at the hands of Anna Ushenina of Ukraine. The 19-year-old Chennai player went down 4.5-5.5 to the experienced Ukrainian GM in an exciting last four clash of the online tournament.
Humpy bagged the award after receiving the highest number of votes from the fans.
Anand got off to a good start and won the first game of the best-of-four contest. The next two games were drawn before Leko levelled by winning the fourth.
Harikrishna started with a draw against England's Michael Adams and posted wins over Alexander Donchenko and Noel Studer of Switzerland in the second and third rounds respectively.
Vaishali came back from 2-4 down to oust the experienced Ukrainian by winning the last two bullet games.
"So... no more chances of going there!" Carlsen replied when he was informed of the result.
Kamath defeated Anand in a COVID-19 relief charity match. However, reports claimed Kamath manipulated the game to register a win. The AICF secretary termed it as a "bad" move by Kamath and said it shouldn't have happened.
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