Freestyle Chess Tour Paris: Erigaisi suffers second consecutive loss; Carlsen and Nakamura play out draws in semis

Arjun Erigaisi suffered a second consecutive defeat in the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour on Friday while Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura played out draws against Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Keymer respectively in the semi-finals. As for the other Indians in action on Day 5 of the Paris event, R Praggnanandhaa played out a 46-move draw against Richard Rapport in their 9th-10th classification match.

Arjun, who is making his Grand Slam Tour debut in Paris alongside compatriots Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi, lost to Russian Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi in 41 moves while playing with black pieces in the opening game of their 5th-8th classification match.

Nepomniachtchi consolidated his position on the board after a hat-trick of solid moves (16. Rb6, 17. Bc3 and 18. Qd2), with Arjun helping his case with a blunder in the 27th move (Ng5). The world No 4 later resigned despite having his Queen on the board.

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Arjun had earlier secured a top-four finish at the end of the Round Robin stage while compatriots Praggnanandhaa (9th), D Gukesh (11th) and Gujrathi (12th) posted underwhelming performances to finish among the bottom four.

The 21-year-old’s hopes of going the distance in Paris, however, was ended by world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura, who defeated him in the quarter-finals with a 1.5-0.5 margin, the Japanese-American GM winning Game 2 after playing out a draw in the opener.

Like Arjun, Praggnanandhaa too played with black pieces during his 9th-12th place playoff clash against Rapport, but was in a lot more control as he played out a 46-move draw against the Hungarian GM.

As for the four semi-finalists, all of them will be starting on level terms in Game 2 on Saturday after both games ended in a draw.

The two games, however, couldn’t be more contrasting – while Caruana and Carlsen fought till the end and were left with their Kings at the end of the 67-move battle, Nakamura shook hands with Keymer after just 41 moves with both sides having their rooks on the board.

Summary of results on Day 5 of Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour

Semi-finals

— Fabiano Caruana 0.5-0.5 Magnus Carlsen

— Hikaru Nakamura 0.5-0.5 Vincent Keymer

5th-8th place playoffs

— Ian Nepomniachtchi 1-0 Arjun Erigaisi

— Nodirbek Abdusattorov 1-0 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

9th-12th place playoffs:

— Richard Rapport 0.5-0.5 Praggnanandhaa