It was not the best of birthdays for five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand as he went down to Hikaru Nakamura of United States in the third round of London Chess Classic chess tournament.
With just 16 players out of 206 participants that started the event remaining in the fray, most of the players decided against taking undue risk and decided to wait for the next game.
The coin toss gave the Alaskan Knights the white pieces, with 20 minutes per player on the clock -- 40 minutes are alloted a match.
Arjun defeats Gukesh as world champion suffers second successive loss in Norway Chess
Viswanathan Anand went down to Hikaru Nakamura of United States in the Armageddon game and had to be content with a second place finish in the Zurich Chess Classic.
This is Anand's sixth loss to American in Classical chess and the Indian ace will now have to do a lot of hard work to catch up in the last five rounds.
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.
Arjun prevailed over Abdusattorov 1.5-0.5 while Praggnanandhaa lost an intense battle 3-4 against Caruana.
The likes of Arjun Erigaisi on the top board will be assisted by P Harikrishna on the second board.
'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'.
Nakamura, who started off as the favourite in the blitz section, is in sixth spot on 13.5 points, ahead of tour leader and compatriot Fabiano Caruana who has 13 points.
Five-time World champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway got the better of D Gukesh in the opening round of Norway Chess.
National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly crashed through the defenses of United States champion Hikaru Nakamura in the Chess World Cup.
After a scintillating victory over Fabiano Caruana of United States in the previous round, Anand yet again showed great intent against Nakamura, but the American was up to the task in a keenly contested game.
After conceding a draw with white against Levon Aronian of Armenia, Anand got the favour returned although he had to work relatively harder to maintain parity against Nakamura, often termed his nemesis.
Viswanathan Anand made another strong comeback, defeating Hikaru Nakamura of the United States in the fourth round of the Zurich Chess Classic on Wednesday.
'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.'
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.
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 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.
Having lost three and drawn three coming into the third and final day of rapid, Praggnanadhaa lost to Lenier Dominguez of the US in the seventh round.
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India's D Gukesh bounced back with a finely crafted game to outwit compatriot Vidit Gujrathi and regain his joint lead with Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia after the eighth round in the Candidates chess tournament in Toronto on Friday.
Victory eluded Viswanathan Anand yet again and the World Champion was held to a draw by Hikaru Nakamura of United States in the seventh round to remain joint second in the fourth Final Masters' second leg, in Bilbao, Spain.
Pragg, Gujrathi out of contention
D Gukesh played out a creditable draw against top seed Fabiano Caruana but slipped a rung to the joint second position.
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, with a double black, suffered a surprising first round loss at the hands of Hikaru Nakamura of United States in the Sinquefield Cup, in St Louis, the United States.
Praggnanandhaa did not have to sweat hard to hold Caruana under Classical but in the Armageddon the American was a transformed player as he took advantage of his white pieces.
Gukesh to clash with Alireza on what promises to be a photo finish
Vaishali stretched her lead to 2.5 points following her second win under classical time control.
Reigning world rapid champion Viswanathan Anand drew his sixth straight game of the tournament to stay undefeated and have a mid-table placing at number four with three points.
While the mind games will go on in the last two games and a potential tiebreaker, American Hikaru Nakamura and world number one Magnus Carlsen feel that the balance had tilted slightly in Ding Liren's favour.
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.
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand played out an easy draw as black against American Hikaru Nakamura to remained in joint third position after the end of the fifth round of Norway Chess 2015, a part of the Grand Chess Tour.
Neither current World Champion D Gukesh nor former world champion Vishy Anand are the top rated Indian chess player.
Carlsen and Praggnanandhaa had drawn their previous three encounters in this format.
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).
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa is still third on 9.5 points in the Norway Chess tournament.
Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa got off to a flier and defeated Firouzja Alireza of France in the Armageddon game in the first round of Norway Chess tournament in Stavanger on Tuesday.
