D Gukesh, the reigning world champion, won his first game of the ongoing FIDE World Cup to enter the third round of the event after defeating Kazybek Nogerbek Wednesday. But it was his world championship second, Pentala Harikrishna, who pulled a rabbit out of the hat with a stunning queen sacrifice and an opening ploy that he had first cooked up in 2016, but never used. Until Wednesday, that is. That too with devastating effect to defeat Arseniy Nesterov and enter the third round.
Among the top Indians, Praggnanandhaa (facing Temur Kuybokarov), Vidit Gujrathi (facing 12-year-old Faustino Oro) and Nihal Sarin (facing Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis) will have to fight it out in the tiebreaks tomorrow after their games ended in draws. Arjun Erigaisi won both his games to enter round 3. A semi-upset for the Indians was the defeat of Aravindh Chithambaram to compatriot Karthik Venkataraman.
Praggnanandhaa, facing Temur Kuybokarov, will have to fight it out in the tiebreak tomorrow. (Photo Credit: Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE)
Harikrishna’s game had seen a jaw-dropping ploy from the Indian to let his queen, the most powerful piece on the board, be captured on the 8th move without immediate compensation. But just four moves later, Harikrishna had taken an edge. He eventually won in 29 moves.
“I don’t deny that it’s definitely a big risk,” Harikrishna told The Indian Express, pointing out that had the ploy backfired he would have been eliminated today. “I was thinking about this opening in the morning and then suddenly in my files this (opening) idea popped out. Then I noticed it’s from 2016, so it’s really been nine years since it’s just been there. I had this feeling that it’s worth trying but never did. There have been games played in this sacrifice, especially Murali Karthikeyan played it last year. I was a little bit unsure if my opponent would know such a thing. The thing with this sacrifice is that the engine obviously gets very excited for the black pieces but at a higher depth actually it (the advantage) goes down.”
Harikrishna added: “So for me, I don’t know if this is my 10th or 11th World Cup. It’s a great enjoyment to play against such strong players. But at the same time, I am not really looking to stay solid and without risk. That is one of the reasons why I went for this.”
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