Norway: World's second youngest Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi let slip a position of strength and lost to Ukraine's Yuri Kryvoruchko in the second game of the chess World Cup's opening round here. The shocking loss with white pieces means that Negi will have to now battle it out in the tie-break games of shorter duration as the final score after the two-game mini-match stands tied at 1-1.
National champion G Akash made his expected exit from the 128-player event with a memorable game wherein he held world number three Caruana to a creditable draw with black pieces. Having lost the first game of the match, the draw only helped Akash to gain some rating but this is one result he will cherish for a long time.
The remaining Indians in the fray also will have to take part in a tough tiebreaker. B Adhiban played out his second draw with Evgeny Alekseev of Russia while Krishnan Sasikiran achieved the same result against Constantin Lupulescu of Romania. To decide the winner now, two games under rapid chess rules will be played with 25 minutes to both players and a ten second addition after every move.
If still tied, two games of 10 minutes will be followed by two games of five minutes each and if the deadlock persists, an Armageddon game will decide the winner in the USD 1.6 million knockout event. Negi was pretty unlucky not to progress to the round of 64. Kryvoruchko went for the Sicilian Dragon but his hopes of a combat in complications evaporated as Negi got slightly better position without much ado.
Kryvoruchko had to part with a pawn also and it was smooth sailing for the Indian till disaster struck on move 42. Negi followed a mistake with a blunder and the fate of the game was soon sealed. Sasikiran allowed the Nimzo Indian defense but could not force an advantage in the late middle game. Lupulescu, to his credit, handled the middle game well enough to remain in hunt for the next round.
Adhiban had slightly better prospects against former Russian champion Alekseev but to make progress was not easy for the Indian. Alekseev equalised towards the end and just repeated moves to force a draw. In other important results, World's highest ranked woman Judit Polgar of Hungary was ousted by Isan Ortiz Suarez of Spain while defending champion Peter Svidler of Russia was shocked by women's world champion Anna Ushenina in the second game and will now have to play tiebreaker.
Ray Robson of United States was impressive in his 2-0 victory over Andrei Volokitin of Ukraine while teenager Wei Yi of China sent Russian star Ian Nepomniachtchi packing after a 1.5-0.5 drubbing.
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