India's Vidit Gujrathi registers win in Prague Chess Festival opener; P Harikrishna draws with Nils Grandelius

Prague: India’s Vidit Santosh Gujrathi opened his campaign in the Masters event of the Prague Chess Festival with a win over Sam Shankland of the USA. [caption id=“attachment_8037781” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Vidit Santosh Gujrathi is ranked second in the latest FIDE list behind the legendary Viswanathan Anand. Twitter @tschessindia[/caption] P Harikrishna (ELO rating 2713), the other Indian player in the field, held Sweden’s Nils Grandelius to a 36-move draw in a Nimzo-Indian game late on Wednesday. Vidit Gujrathi and Harikrishna are ranked two and three in the latest FIDE list behind the legendary Viswanathan Anand. In the Vidit Gujrathi-Shankland match, the Indian cashed in on his opponent’s only mistake and proceeded to win in 32 moves, continuing his dominance over the American. “In the opening, I was spending a lot of time, and I was not expecting this line so I had to improvise. The only problem was I was in time pressure as I had to calculate a lot,” the India No 2 with an ELO rating of 2721, said after the victory. Top-seeds Jan-Krzysztof Duda of Poland and Nikita Vitiugov (Russia) were the other winners in the opening round. Duda had a relatively easy day in office, taking advantage of an off-day for the host nation’s David Navara. Alireza Firouzja of Iran, the No 1 junior player in the world, who replaced Chinese GM Wei Yi owing to the coronavirus outbreak, was held to a draw by Markus Ragger (Austria) in his opener. In the second round later on Thursday, Gujrathi faces David Anton Guijjaro while Harikrishna tackles the top-seeded Duda. The 10-player tournament concludes on 21 February. Results: Round 1: Vidit Gujrathi beat Sam Shankland; P Harikrishna drew with Nils Grandelius; Alireza Firouzja drew with Markus Ragger, Nika Vitiugov beat David Anton Guijjaro, Jan-Krysztof beat David Navara.