Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa finished in sixth and seventh position respectively, even as Grandmaster Levon Aronian of the United States reigned supreme in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam.
Arjun Erigaisi joined Hikaru Nakamura in the lead at the Norway Chess 2025 after handing compatriot World champion Gukesh Dommaraju a second straight defeat on Tuesday. After two rounds of action-packed games in Stavanger, Erigaisi and Nakamura share the lead with 4.5 points each.
Indian great Viswanathan Anand will revive his iconic rivalry with Russian stalwart Garry Kasparov, while world champion D Gukesh will go up against familiar foe Magnus Carlsen in Clutch Chess exhibition matches come October in St Louis, USA.
While only one place seems assured for the Indians in the men's section, there are already three in the women's category who have made it to the Candidates.
Women's World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh, who has also qualified for the Women's Candidates, has opted out of the women's section to compete with the best in business.
Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa took down World No 1 Magnus Carlsen to advance to the top-bracket quarter-finals along with Arjun Erigaisi at the Freestyle Grand Slam Tour.
Reigning World champion Dommaraju Gukesh's roller-coaster ride continues. The Indian Grandmaster suffered defeat in an Armageddon tie-break and slipped to tied-fifth place, while Arjun Erigaisi upset American world No.2 Hikaru Nakamura to maintain fourth position in the Norway Chess tournament.
Reigning World champion D Gukesh finally got his revenge on Magnus Carlsen as he pounced on a blunder by the World No 1 to defeat him for the first time in a classical game.
Arjun prevailed over Abdusattorov 1.5-0.5 while Praggnanandhaa lost an intense battle 3-4 against Caruana.
World number four Arjun Erigaisi was outplayed by Ian Nepomniachtchi in the opening game of the 5-9 place tiebreaker at the ongoing Freestyle Chess Grand Slam.
Praggnanandhaa wins UzChess Cup Masters, becomes top-ranked Indian and World No.4
Gukesh suffers crushing loss against Nakamura, Erigaisi wins in Norway Chess
The likes of Arjun Erigaisi on the top board will be assisted by P Harikrishna on the second board.
D Gukesh will take on Magnus Carlsen in the opening round in what should be one of the most keenly-contested matches at the Norway Chess tournament.
Neither current World Champion D Gukesh nor former world champion Vishy Anand are the top rated Indian chess player.
Arjun defeats Gukesh as world champion suffers second successive loss in Norway Chess
Carlsen came up with a fine exchange sacrifice maintaining parity, and after 49 moves the draw was a just result giving the best player in the world a deserving 1.5-0.5 victory.
'Right now, I'm happy with the game that I played today. Tomorrow (Friday), hopefully, another good game I can play. And whatever the result will be, we'll see later. But yeah, just focusing on playing the game.'
'Most of my birthdays I end up losing the game, so glad it did not repeat in the classical. When I was playing, I felt fine, but when I was losing, I was like, 'ok, not again'.
Reigning world champion D Gukesh continued to turn adversity into opportunity as he wriggled out of a virtually intractable position to beat compatriot Arjun Erigaisi for the first time ever in a classical game and jump to sole second position after round 7 of the Norway Chess.
Five-time World champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway got the better of D Gukesh in the opening round of Norway Chess.
World champion D Gukesh played out a hard-fought draw with Hikaru Nakamura of United States in the first game of the 5-8 place play-offs.
World No. 4 Arjun Erigaisi of India started off with a draw against Hikaru Nakamura of the United States in the first game of the quarterfinals of Freestyle chess tournament in Paris on Wednesday.
The stars competing at the Norway Chess event were in for an authentic Wild West surprise when they had to don cowboy hats, roper boots, well worn-out jeans to indulge in some rodeo activity.
World champion D Gukesh finished last after losing to Iranian-French Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja in the second game of their seventh place play-off match at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam.
Local hero Vincent Keymer was at his best as he drew the first blood against Fabiano Caruana of the United States. Going in with 1-0 lead with one game to go, the onus is now on Caruana to draw level that will force a tiebreaker.
World Champion D Gukesh's quest for a victory continued as Hikaru Nakamura defeated him in the tie-breaker of the 5-8 place play-off at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam.
World champion D Gukesh will take on Fabiano Caruana of the United States in the two-game quarter-final after the latter picked the Indian in a unique format typical of Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, in Hamburg, Germany.
World no.1 Magnus Carlsen's fiery reaction after losing to D Gukesh in Norway Chess here was probably because he saw his authority in the game being challenged by someone so young
American Hikaru Nakamura also finished with 5.5 points, 1.5 points ahead of local representative Vincent Keymer, who placed sixth.
India's Deepak Punia and Udit reached the final of the 92 and 61 categories, respectively, at the Senior Asian Wrestling Championships in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Sunday.
This is the one of the strongest line-ups in a chess tournament ever, with four of them with a rating over 2800.
World Champion D Gukesh suffered a rare setback in normal time control, losing to USA's Fabiano Caruana in the first game of the quarterfinals of the Freestyle Grand Slam chess tournament.
World champion D Gukesh climbed to a career-high No 3 ranking, while compatriot R Praggnanandhaa broke back into the top 10 in the latest FIDE classical ratings released on Saturday.
The American Gambits scored a crucial victory against the Ganges Grandmasters in the opening round of day four of the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League on Sunday. Hikaru Nakamura and Elisabeth Paehtz lead the winning charge for the American Gambits.
World Chess Champion D Gukesh and World Junior Chess Champion Pranav Venkatesh are from the same school and were classmates till Class 10!
Mumba's only win came on the prodigy board. Jonas Bjerre of American Gambits launched an all-out attack against Raunak Sadhwani, even sacrificing a piece.
Norway's Magnus Carlsen continues to be the undisputed world No.1 with 2832.5 points, followed by United States' Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura (2802) and country-mate Fabiano Caruana (2798).
Magnus Carlsen feels he's still better than the young generation of chess players, but the Norwegian great is ruling out a comeback at the classical world championship.
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