World Champion D Gukesh suffered his second straight defeat at the FIDE Grand Swiss, losing to Greece's Nikolas Theodorou in the sixth round here on Tuesday.
Coming off a loss to the youngest-ever Grandmaster Abhimanyu Mishra of the USA in the previous round, Gukesh endured another heartbreak from a drawn position as he overpressed, leading to complications and was punished.
At the top of the table, Arjun Erigaisi had little trouble holding sole leader Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran from the black side of a queen pawn game.
Even though the Iranian still holds the sole lead on five points from his six games, Erigaisi made sure he is within striking distance of the leader, just a half point behind on 4.5.
Abhimanyu Mishra, Matthias Bluebaum of Germany and Nihal Sarin jointly share the second spot alongside Erigaisi post the halfway stage in this very significant and the strongest Swiss tournament of the world.
On a day when top seeded Grandmaster R Praggnanadhaa failed to break the solid defenses of Rauf Mamedov of Azerbaijan, his sister R Vaishali cruised past Ulviyya Fataliyeva to remain in joint lead with Kateryna Lagno in the women’s section.
Vaishali remained in joint lead with FIDE representative Kateryna Lagno, who had to work hard to beat Dinara Wagner from what was probably a drawn endgame.
Vaishali was in total control with her black pieces as she launched an offensive on both flanks and was rewarded with a winning rook and pawns endgame thanks to her extra pawn.
Gukesh wanted to win at all costs, and that proved catastrophic. The world champion could have drawn the rook and pawns endgame, but a rare miscalculation cost him.
Now on fifty per cent, Gukesh has to win at least four of the remaining five games to stay in contention.
Praggnanandhaa tried his best, but for once, Mamedov did not budge while Sarin benefited from a huge tactical oversight by his Polish opponent, Szymon Gumularz, to move up the charts.
With the lone rest day scheduled for Wednesday, the battle for the top two places and the $855,000 prize fund will resume on Thursday in both sections.
The top two from each section will make it to the Candidates tournament of 2026, which will determine the challenger for the next World Championship match in both men's and women's sections.
Important and Indian results round 6 open (Indians unless specified): Parham Maghsoodloo (Iri, 5) drew with Arjun Erigaisi (4.5); Matthias Bluebaum (Ger, 4.5) drew with Abhimanyu Mishra (Usa, 4.5); Marcandria Maurizzi (Fra, 4) lost to Anish Giri (Ned, 4.5); Amin Tabatabaei (Iri, 4) drew with Alireza Firouzja (Fra, 4); Maxim Rodshtein (Isr, 4) drew with Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb, ); Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (Tur, 4) drew with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 4); Szymon Gumularz (Pol, 3.5) lost to Nihal Sarin (4.5); Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb, 4) drew with V Pranav (3.5); R Praggnanandhaa (3.5) drew with Rauf Mamedov (Aze, 3.5); D Gukesh (3) lost to Nikolas Theodorou (Gre, 4); Anton Demchenko (Slo, 3) lost to Vidit Gujrathi (4); Abhimanyu Puranik (3.5) drew with Richard Rapport (Hun, 3.5); P Harikrishna (3) drew with Ediz Gurel (Tur, 3); Deac Bogdan-Daniel (Rou, 2.5) Leon Luke Mendonca (2.5); Aydin Suleymanli (Aze, 3) drew with Raunak Sadhwani (3); Aditya Mittal (3) drew with Boris Gelfand (Isr, 3); S L Narayanan (3) drew with Nils Grandelius (Swe, 3); Vladislav Artemiev (Fid, 2.5) drew with Aryan Chopra (2.5); Gabriel Sargissian (Arm, 2.5) drew with Divya Deshmukh (2.5); Murali Karthikeyan (1.5) drew with Abdisalimov Abdimalik (Uzb, 1.5).
Women: Kateryna Lagno (Fid, 5) beat Dinara Wagner (Ger, 4); Ulviyya Fataliyeva (Aze, 4) lost to R Vaishali (5); Tan Zhongyi (Chn, 3.5) lost to Antoaneta Stefanova (Bul, 4.5); Afruza 0Khamdamova (Uzb, 4) drew with Bibisara Assaubayeva (Kaz, 4); Olga Girya (Fid, 3.5) drew with Yuxin Song (Chn, 3); Dronavalli Harika (3.5) beat Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova (Uzb, 2.5); Vantika Agrawal (2.5) beat Lina Nassr (Alg, 1.5)
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