Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi scored crushing victories, while D Gukesh held on to the joint top spot with a draw in a brilliant sixth-round outing for the Indian men's team at the Candidates Chess Tournament in Toronto.
Gukesh faced the in-vogue Italian opening as black against Caruana and the players battled it out in the main variation.
Indian GM D Gukesh overwhelmed Dutch player Max Warmerdam for his third victory on the trot and elevated himself to a joint lead after the seventh round of the Tata Steel Masters Chess tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands on Sunday.
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.
Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa produced a spectacular game to get the better of fellow-Indian Vidit Gujrathi in the third round of the Candidates Chess tournament in Toronto on Saturday.
After the draw with Iranian turned French player Firouza, Gukesh has seven points for his sole second spot.
With five points in his kitty from eight games, D Gukesh jointly leads the standings with Anish Giri of Holland.
With seven rounds still to come in the first super tournament of the year, Anish Guru maintained his sole lead on 4.5 points out of a possible six and he is now trailed by Iranian turned Frenchman Firouza Alireza who is on 4 points.
Grandmaster D Gukesh endured a heartbreak in the final tie-breaker against Wei Yi of China and had to be content with a joint second place finish at the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Apart from a place in the Candidates to be played in April next year in Canada, Vaishali got richer by US$25000 (Over Rs 20 Lakhs) while Vidit took home a whopping prize purse of US$80000 (Over Rs 66 Lakhs).
After six draws in a row, Praggnanandhaa was relieved after the victory, a result of Gupta's blunder under time pressure.
Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi pipped Rinat Zumabayev of Kazakhstan in the fifth round to share the top spot.
Vidit Gujrathi crashed through the defences of Hans Moke Niemann of the United States to join the leaders' pack on 4.5 points.
Dronavalli Harika stunned world champion Ju Wenjun in the third round to grab a share of the top spot in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix
Johnson said that he has travelled to Ukraine to meet President Zelenskyy in person and show solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
After the first game against the same opponent ended in a draw, Harika was with black pieces in the second and she employed a French defence and Kosteniuk did not have many answers.
Grandmaster and former national champion B Adhiban was knocked out of the chess World Cup after losing his second game on the trot against higher-ranked Hikaru Nakamura of United States in the third round in Tromso, Norway.
Harika had carried the Indian hopes nicely till the tie-breaker of the third round. However, she got a jolt in the first game of the rapid tie-break where both players had 25 minutes on their clock.
Riding on three back-to-back victories, Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta emerged as the best performing Indian as he finished seventh in the Al Ain Classic International chess tournament that concluded in Al Ain (UAE) on Saturday.
Former World champion Viswanathan Anand ended the World Rapid Championship on a positive note, scoring four points out of five games on the final day, but the Indian ace could only finish 25th in the final standings.
A month after being criticised for being too conservative and blinkered following a dour goalless draw with Ukraine, England coach Roy Hodgson was being heaped with praise for guiding the side to the World Cup finals on Wednesday.
The Indian contingent's schedule at the Rio Olympics for Saturday.
Anand played the Italian game with white pieces but could get little out of opening against Vituigov.
Back in chess just before the Olympiad after a nearly two-year hiatus, Humpy, who has been among the top women players for a long time, will now have to wait for another two years to have a go at the next world championship cycle.
Grandmaster B Adhiban finished tied third at the Chess.com Isle of Man International tournament after beating the highly-regarded Michael Adams of England in the ninth and final round, in Isle of Man (UK) on Monday.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
Fabiano Caruana of United States made sure of his maiden title after beating Jan-Krzysztof Duda of Poland.
Five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand gave a fine endgame lesson to young Alireza Firouzja, jumping to joint sixth position at the end of 11th round of Tata Steel Masters, in Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands, on Saturday. With his second victory, Anand clawed his way back to a fifty percent score and will now hope to end the tournament on a high. At just 16 years, Firouzja is less than one third of Anand's age, and the Indian ace showed that the Iranian still has a lot to learn.
Alireza Firouzja remained in joint lead with Caruana on 5.5 points and these two are now ahead of Wesley So of United States and Jorden Van Foreest of Holland.
Indian Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Kaido Kulaots of Estonia and went out of contention for a podium finish after seventh round of the 31st Cappelle La Grande international chess tournament in Cappelle La Grande, France.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday
Anand has been trying to play very complicated positions and the sixth round was no different.
It was on move 21 that Giri thought he was out of trouble and proposed a draw.
The day produced four decisive games and it was again the youngsters who provided most of the entertainment.
Grandmaster and former Asian champion S P Sethuraman has knocked out former FIDE champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in a big first round upset at the Chess World Cup in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Monday
Anand, as white, had simply an extra pawn and this is where the tenacity of Carlsen came to fore.
Reigning champions Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams have been named top seeds for the Australian Open starting on Monday.
Anand moved to joint sixth spot with 2.5 points on a day that saw Firouzja Alireza scoring a sensational victory over super-solid Anish Giri of Holland.
Carlsen had previously indicated he would not consider the record truly broken until after two more games as he was not prepared to count two wins he had in the Norwegian league.
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