Kerala’s SL Narayanan knocks out former World No 15; Nihal exits FIDE Chess World Cup

Kerala-based Grandmasters Nihal Sarin and S L Narayanan had contrasting results in their respective Round 2 games of the FIDE Chess World Cup in Goa on Thursday.

Nihal made a shock exit in the first set of tiebreakers against GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis, losing 1.5-2.5. But Narayanan used his experience to outplay former World No 15 Nikita Vitiugov 5-3 at the end of an exhaustive series of six tiebreaker games.

Nihal, who recently joined the elite list of Super GMs by crossing 2700 Elo points, was outwitted by the 2583-rated Greek in their first tiebreaker game. Nihal took a risk with black pieces but was out-calculated by the opponent, who drew their second Rapid game of the tiebreaker to win the round.

Thiruvananthapuram native Narayanan was calculated in his approach, not taking unnecessary risks and settling for draws in the initial four tiebreaker games.

His break came in the fifth tiebreaker game in which he played white. Vitiugov found himself light on the infantry side. Narayanan made good use of his extra pawns, controlling the advantage in a rook end game to win. In the final tiebreaker game, Vitiugov went all-out, knowing it was a must-win for him, but the Russian, who now represents England, played himself into trouble by being ultra-aggressive.

Narayanan will next play Chinese Super GM Yu Yangyi. The first classical game of the two-game match-up is scheduled for Friday.

The other Indian players who have advanced to Round 3 are World Champion D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, Pentala Harikrishna, V Pranav, Diptayan Ghosh, Karthik Venkataraman, Vidit Gujrathi and M Pranesh.