Arjun Erigaisi on Friday became the only Indian to enter the semifinal of the Las Vegas leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. He made the last 4 with after prevailing over Nodirbek Abdusattorov in a straightforward two-game contest at the Wynn casino hotel. Along with Arjun, Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, and Hans Niemann also made it in the upper-bracket semifinals.
Arjun won the first rapid game and drew the second, eliminating Abdusattorov and will now face Aronian on July 19. Arjun had earlier advanced from the round-robin stage with a strong showing, scoring 4 points from 7 games, including 3 wins and 2 draws.
Arjun was a class act in both games and enjoyed the advantage from the word go. Playing white in the second game the Indian won a rook for a Bishop early, and very soon, it did not look like a Freestyle game, as Arjun simply overpowered Abdusattorov with his extra material.
Earlier in the first game too, Arjun enjoyed an advantage after the opening, but some unforced errors in the later part of the game allowed the Uzbek to get a half point.
However, Arjun’s his good friend Praggnanandhaa couldn’t get past Caruana in his own match of the day. The Indian played out a seven-game royal rumble against the American GM that lasted just over 10 hours. In the end, unfortunately, Praggnanandhaa lost. It is not the end of the road for Praggnanandhaa though as he now moves to the lower bracket with seven other players for another set of knockout games.
Meanwhile, the American duo of Aronian and Niemann, the other winners in the quarterfinal stage, defeated compatriot Hikaru Nakamura and Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan respectively. While Aronian won by a 2.5-1.5 margin over four games, Niemann took longer in beating Sindarov 4-2.
In the lower bracket, world number one Magnus Carlslen regained his winning touch and ousted Vidit Gujrathi 2-0. American Wesley So won 1.5-0.5 against compatriot Samuel Sevian while Leinier Dominguez Perez had a smooth 1.5-0.5 victory over Bibisara Assaubayeva of Kazakhstan.
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Vincent Keymer of Germany, the winner of the first leg, defeated Robson Ray, also from America, by 2.5-1.5 margin.
(With agency inputs)
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