Karthik Venkataraman became the fifth Indian to reach the fourth round at the FIDE World Cup after surviving a nerve-wracking tiebreak battle against Bogdan-Daniel Deac on Sunday. Besides Karthik, Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, Pentala Harikrishna and Pranav V will also be part of the 32 players who will return to the board after the first rest of the event on Monday. Meanwhile, it was heartbreak for Vidit Gujrathi and SL Narayanan who were eliminated from Round 3 after tiebreaks.
For Vidit, the heartbreak was harsher as he had won the first rapid game on Sunday against Sam Shankland with some brilliant endgame maneuvering. But he then lost the next game to send the contest into a mini-battle with two more games, where he drew the first and then finally lost the second one to see the door on his Candidates chances shut.
After his fin victory on Sunday, two-time National champion Karthik said he was in ‘total fear’ coming into the World Cup because everyone is ‘very strong’. While some of the world’s best players like world champion D Gukesh, Anish Giri, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Wesley So are already eliminated, Karthik will continue his stay in Goa for at least three more days.
INTERACTIVE: How Karthik Venkataraman beat Bogdan-Daniel Deac
Karthik, who will play against Le Quang Liem of Vietnam in the fourth round, said that his journey in the sport had actually started on his seventh birthday when his mother gifted him a chessboard. It was a case of love at first sight and Karthik has never looked back.
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When asked if making it to the fourth round of the World Cup was his biggest achievement to date, especially considering that many top players had crashed out early, the 25-year-old from Tirupathi said, “Probably winning the Nationals twice is my biggest achievement. Very few have done it. I mean, I have won some tournaments. But you cannot name winning those as the best achievement. Being a two-time national champion is much cooler.”
With the win over Deac, five rounds stand between Karthik and the chance to do something even cooler: win the Viswanathan Anand Cup, secure a spot in the prestigious Candidates tournament (given to the top three finishers at the World Cup) and pocket a cool $1,20,000 prize money (approximately Rs one crore).
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