By Admin 
Arjun Erigaisi
| Photo Credit:
P.K. Ajith Kumar
There were 206 of them. Now it is down to 32. The chess World Cup is moving towards its business end, promising plenty of action on the black-and-white squares.
After a day’s rest – well earned by the players, many of whom have had to go through the nerve-wracking tie-breakers – the fourth round gets underway at Resort Rio here on Tuesday.
Among those 32 men isn’t the top seed. D. Gukesh was ousted by Germany’s Frederik Svane in the third round. So, the miserable year continues for the 19-year-old from Chennai. Not much has gone right for him after winning the World championship last year.
He isn’t the only big seed to say an early goodbye to the beaches of Goa, though. Anish Giri, Wesley So, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov – all among the top 10 – have been knocked out.
The second and third seeds are still in the hunt, however. Arjun Erigaisi and R. Praggnanandhaa have always been India’s big hopes at this tournament. Their progress has been in contrasting styles, though: Praggnanandhaa has had to survive some anxious moments, but Arjun has been solid, winning his first three classical games and then drawing the fourth.
And he has to come up with his best. Arjun needs to finish inside the top three at the World Cup to entertain realistic hopes of making it to the Candidates, the event that will decide Gukesh’s challenger for the next World championship.
In the fourth round, he faces the Hungarian veteran Peter Leko, while Pragganandhaa will meet Russia’s Daniil Dubov. V. Pranav, P. Harikrishna and Karthik Venkataraman are the other Indians that have advanced to the fourth round. More was expected from the likes of Vidit Gujrathi, Nihal Sarin and Aravindh Chithambaram, who lost to Karthik in the second round.
Having said that, the knockout format is unforgiving, and it isn’t that surprising that so many seeds have already fallen. The remaining ones, including Vincent Keymer, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Richard Rapport and Levon Aronian, should know they have to be careful if they don’t want to join that list.
The pairings (fourth round): Frederik Svane (Ger) v Shant Sargsyan (Arm); Peter Leko (Hun) v Arjun Erigaisi; R. Praggnanandhaa v Daniil Dubov (Rus); Matthias Bluebaum (Ger) v Alexander Donchenko (Ger); V. Pranav v Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb); Andrey Esipenko (Rus) v Vincent Keymer (Ger); Wei Yi (Chn) v Parham Maghsoodloo (Ira); Alexey Sarana (Srb) v Jose Martínez Alcantara (Mex); Nils Grandelius (Swe) v P. Harikrishna; Samuel Sevian (USA) v Lorenzo Lodici (Ita); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) v Aleksey Grebnev (Rus); Awonder Liang (USA) v Gabriel Sargissian (Arm); Le Quang Liem (Vie) v Karthik Venkataraman; Sam Shankland (USA) v Richard Rapport (Hun); Levon Aronian (USA) v Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Pol); Yu Yangyi (Chn) v Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb).