Panaji: Levon Aronian and P Harikrishna will aim to cash in on their white pieces on Saturday when they play the last classical game of their World Cup pre-quarterfinals against Arjun Erigaisi and Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara, respectively. The veterans from Armenia and India drew their first games at Rio Resort here on Friday. With seven of the eight games of the day ending in draws, Saturday’s return games are expected to be tense affairs. Mexico’s Martinez vs Hari (Two Knights opening) was the first game to end, in less than two hours and 41 moves, with a rook and three pawns each remaining on the board.Though Arjun and Aronian, who now plays for the USA, also split a point after the same number of moves, their battle lasted for two more hours as questions were asked in the Queen’s Gambit Declined.
Arjun had an extra pawn (4 vs 3) in the double-rook endgame, but the twice former champion of this tournament was up to the task, ending their fourth career meeting in the classical format without a decisive result.Five of the six players who are still in the fray despite being seeded outside 40 split a point and kept their hopes of another upset alive.The only decisive result of the day was the defeat of D Gukesh’s conqueror Frederick Svane (Germany) with black pieces to Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov in a complex, tense endgame involving double bishops and an extra pawn vs bishop and knight. The Giuoco Piano lasted for 68 moves and more than five hours and tested the nerves of both players.Daniil Dubov, yet to win in the classical phase in this knockout tournament, may be fancying his chances again in tiebreaks against Sam Shankland. But he would probably rue a missed chance to press home the advantage in the first classical game of the Ruy Lopez opening with black pieces.The Russian missed a pawn check on the 43rd move to corner the American in a rook, bishop and three-pawn vs knight, bishop and five-pawn endgame. Fifteen moves later, with the exchange of a pawn and bishop for a knight, the former second of Magnus Carlsen had to agree to a draw.No. 7 seed Wei Yi of China, who survived a tense tiebreak against Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo in the preceding round, had to summon all his solidity to hold fellow 2700-club member Sevian Samuel (USA).
