Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin had the best combined performance at the ‘Titled Tuesday’ event, finishing runner-up to Alexey Sarana in the ’early’ event followed by seventh in the ’late’ edition. Carlsen, in comparison, finished 10th and third in the ’early’ and ’late’ editions respectively.
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Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin was the standout performer in an online chess event that had the likes of world No 1 Magnus Carlsen among its participants. Nihal had the best combined finish among all competitors at the ‘Titled Tuesday’ event, hosted by online chess platform Chess.com. The 20-year-old from Thrissur, Kerala finished runner-up to Russian Serbian GM Alexey Sarana in the ’early edition’ of the event. Nihal would then secure a top-seven finish in the ’late edition’ of the event.
Nihal bounces back from a disastrous start to finish second
What made his performance even more impressive was his recovery from a disastrous start in the ’early’ event – losing to Russian Candidate Master Evgenij Novikov after committing a blunder.
Nihal would go on to win nine and draw one in the next 10 rounds to finish tied on 9.5 points with Sarana and Vietnam’s Tuan Minh Le, defeating big names such as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Jan-Krzysztof Dudaalong the way.
Sarana, however, was declared winner of the ’early’ event due to a better tie-break score.
Nihal would then win six on the trot in the ’late’ event, but finish with 8.5 points after suffering defeats againstAlireza Firouzja and Daniel Naroditsky.
Five-time world champion Carlsen, who had recently finished third in the Freestyle Chess event in Weissenhaus, Germany, finished 10th and third in the ’early’ and ’late’ editions respectively.
The ’early’ event got underway at 9.30 pm IST and had 740 participants while the ’late’ edition started at 2.30 am IST the following day, with 486 competing in that leg. The online event is played in the bliz format.
Among other Indians to shine at the ‘Titled Tuesday’ event in recent months is world No 5 Arjun Erigaisi, who had
won the ’early’ event on 14 January with 10 wins in 11 games – including victories over Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.
Nihal had finished 12th in the ’late’ edition of the same event with eight wins, two losses and a draw.