Gukesh Dommaraju and Arjun Erigaisi — who are among the top three seeded players at the ongoing FIDE Grand Swiss tournament — slumped to defeats in the seventh round of the event in Samarkand on Thursday. But the day with both the tournaments — the FIDE Grand Swiss and the FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss — having an Indian grandmaster in pole position.
Vaishali Rameshbabu defeated Chinese IM Guo Qi to stay on the top of the Women’s Grand Swiss leaderboard. She’s on track to win the tournament for the second time, something no male or female player has done so far in the event’s young history.
But the statement victory of the day came from Nihal Sarin, who surged to the top of the FIDE Grand Swiss standings after winning an intense game against Iranian GM Parham Maghsoodloo, that saw so much drama on the board that at one point six grandmasters took a break from their own battles to huddle around the Nihal vs Maghsoodloo game. Both players had less than 10 minutes on their clocks with 26 moves in the book, which left them in a time scramble. By the time they reached the 32nd move, they were both playing with barely a minute on their clocks, which probably suited the Indian, since he is known for his prowess in the faster time controls.
INTERACTIVE: How Nihal Sarin defeated Parham Maghsoodloo
All the moves from Nihal Sarin vs Parham Maghsoodloo
1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. Bf4 Nc6 6. e3 Bf5 7. Nf3 e6 8. Qb3 Bb4 9. Ne5 Qb6 10. f3 O-O 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Kf2 Nd7 13. Na4 Qa5 14. Bc7 Qxc7 15. Qxb4 e5 16. Rc1 Rfe8 17. Be2 Re6 18. dxe5 Rae8 19. Qf4 Bg6 20. Rhd1 Nxe5 21. Nc5 R6e7 22. Rc3 h5 23. Rd4 a5 24. a4 Qa7 25. h3 Qb6 26. Rd2 Qa7 27. Qd4 Rb8 28. Ne6 Qb7 29. Nf4 Rbe8 30. b3 h4 31. Qc5 Qb8 32. Qxa5 Nd7 33. Rxc6 Rxe3 34. Nxg6 Qg3+ 35. Kf1 Nf6 36. Rxf6 gxf6 37. Nxh4 Rxb3 38. Nf5 Qf4 39. Qxd5 Rb1+ 40. Kf2 Re5 41. Qd8+ Kh7 42. Qxf6
Maghsoodloo had started the game as the tournament leader and was so crestfallen when the writing on the wall became apparent, that he could not even meet Nihal’s eyes as he extended his hand in resignation. Even Nihal seemed to apologise to Parham for winning the game, the kind of courtesy apology tennis players do when the net cord gets involved. But such was the complexity of the game, that despite the initial dejection of the Iranian, he spent 15 full minutes deep diving into the game with Nihal at one end of the playing hall.
“A completely crazy game,” was how Nihal would later describe it in an interview with Chessbase India. “Scrambles can be kind of random. And today I was just lucky to win.”
Meanwhile, Divya Deshmukh beat Serbian grandmaster Velimir Ivić, who is 152 ELO ratings points ahead of the Indian teenager. Divya has now taken down two male grandmasters and picked up 15 rating points over the course of the tournament after making the bold decision to play in the Open section.
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