Day two at the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League Season 2 featured a highly anticipated duel between league favorites, the Alpine Sg Pipers, and reigning champions, the Triveni Continental Kings.
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.
The coin toss gave the Alaskan Knights the white pieces, with 20 minutes per player on the clock -- 40 minutes are alloted a match.
Viswanathan Anand made another strong comeback, defeating Hikaru Nakamura of the United States in the fourth round of the Zurich Chess Classic on Wednesday.
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.
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.
FIDE files formal complaint with ethics commission against former world champion Kramnik
Uzbekistan's GM Javokhir Sindarov set up a title clash against Chinese GM Wei Yi in the FIDE World Cup in Panaji on Sunday as the two players also confirmed their spots in the Candidates tournament.
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.
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.
World champion D Gukesh and compatriot Arjun Erigaisi delivered in a must-win situation to help PBG Alaskan Knights register their first win in the Global Chess League (GCL) in Mumbai on Thursday.
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.
Arjun defeats Gukesh as world champion suffers second successive loss in Norway Chess
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.
'...There's nothing to say about the chess aspect... One of those places that you don't feel sad about leaving.'
The likes of Arjun Erigaisi on the top board will be assisted by P Harikrishna on the second board.
Arjun prevailed over Abdusattorov 1.5-0.5 while Praggnanandhaa lost an intense battle 3-4 against Caruana.
'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'.
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.
Five-time World champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway got the better of D Gukesh in the opening round of Norway Chess.
Viswanathan Anand believes that this year's world championship can happen in Chennai if R Praggnanandhaa wins the Candidates Tournament
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
Praggnanandhaa wins UzChess Cup Masters, becomes top-ranked Indian and World No.4
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.
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.
Kramnik's comments shameful but where were Naroditsky's friends when he was alive? FIDE CEO
Carlsen and Praggnanandhaa had drawn their previous three encounters in this format.
