R Praggnanandhaa Left In Disbelief After Costly Blunder Ends Title Hopes

Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa suffered a shock defeat after committing an inexplicable blunder from a winning position against Richard Rapport on day four of the Fast Classical competition at the Total Chess World Championship Tour Pilot. The 21-year-old made a costly late mistake in their first game and was immediately checkmated by Rapport. As soon as Praggnanandhaa realised the error, he put his hand to his forehead and smiled wryly in disbelief. "I don't think I can play anything worse than that, so it's fine!" Praggnanandhaa said.

The pair drew their return encounter, leaving Praggnanandhaa at the bottom of Group B and ending his hopes of qualifying for the title knockouts.

His sister, R Vaishali, also fell out of title contention after losing both her games to American Grandmaster Wesley So.

The Indian GM has four points from eight games, having lost six, won one and drawn one.

Only the top four players from each group advance to the title knockout stage, while the remaining players compete in the classification brackets.

However, Arjun Erigaisi remained firmly in contention after ending Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's unbeaten run in the Fast Classical section.

"It wasn't an easy game, but I'm happy to win. I think, in general, Maxime is very quick under the clock. I'm happy I was able to put pressure on him," Erigaisi said.

After drawing the first game, Erigaisi won the return encounter with the white pieces in an endgame to move level with Vachier-Lagrave on 13 points.

Hans Niemann also reached 13 points after recording a win and a draw against Bibisara Assaubayeva.

Niemann won the first game with the white pieces before Assaubayeva held him to a draw in the day's longest contest.

World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen drew both his games against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Without a victory in the group stage, the Norwegian was also eliminated from title contention.

Anish Giri took sole possession of the lead in Group C after registering a win and a draw against Abhimanyu Mishra. Giri won an endgame with the white pieces in their opening encounter.

Alireza Firouzja continued to lead Group A on 13 points, while Fabiano Caruana maintained a four-point advantage at the top of Group B with 16 points. Giri leads Group C with 13 points.

Jorden van Foreest moved level with Jan-Krzysztof Duda on 11 points after the pair exchanged victories with Andrew Hong.

Hong struck first with the black pieces, but Van Foreest responded by winning the return game with black to earn three points. Hong now sits on nine points.

Levon Aronian and Nodirbek Abdusattorov drew both of their games. Aronian moved to nine points, level with Hong, while Abdusattorov has seven.

Firouzja takes a two-point lead into the final pair of group-stage games.

Meanwhile, Caruana and Liem Le drew both their games, maintaining the four-point gap between the top two players in Group B. Caruana has 16 points from four wins and four draws, while Le remains unbeaten on 12.

Each player has two games remaining in the Fast Classical round-robin stage before the final standings determine places in the six knockout brackets.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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