Gukesh, Erigaisi advance; tiebreaker trouble for Praggnanandhaa, Malayali duo

World Champion D Gukesh and India No 1 Arjun Erigaisi moved to Round 3 of the FIDE Chess World Cup in Goa on Wednesday. Meanwhile, R Praggnanandhaa and Kerala GMs S L Narayanan and Nihal Sarin must win their respective tiebreakers on Thursday to advance.

Gukesh defeated Kazakh GM Kazybek Nogerbek with black pieces to win their mini match-up 1.5-0.5. Erigaisi won his second game against Bulgarian Martin Petrov to make it 2-0 and complete a smooth progress.

But the 2535-rated Uzbekistani-Australian GM Temur Kuybokarov has proved to be a formidable opponent to Praggnanandhaa, holding the 2771-rated Indian superstar to successive draws.

Thrissur native Nihal was held to a draw with white pieces by Greek GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis and Narayanan from Thiruvananthapuram split a point with Nikita Vitiugov. Both match-ups ended 1-1 after the two classical battles and will now be decided by a pair of Rapid tiebreakers tomorrow.

The eight-round knockout tournament features some of the finest players in the world. However, World No 1 Magnus Carlsen is not participating.