The second day of the Total Chessâ fast classical portion at the Budapest pilot event saw all three Indians lose their first games. Arjun Erigaisi was stunned by Bibisara Assaubayeva, Praggnanandhaa was taken down by Fabiano Caruana, while Vaishali lost to Hans Niemann. All three Indians will play another fast classical game against the same opponents with colours reversed later in the day on Thursday.
The most stunning result of the three was Bibisara defeating Arjun, a result she later termed in her interviews as the best result of her career in classical chess. Arjun is rated 2746, a gap of 214 rating points over Bibisara.
While Bibisara was a pawn up from the 13th move, Arjunâs troubles started on the 17th move with a push of the rook, which gave his Kazakh opponent a slight edge, according to the evaluation bar. But it was on the 41st move that Arjun found himself in a dead-lost position. He continued to resist till move 46 before resigning.
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âIt was probably one of the best wins with the Kings Indian structure in my career. Iâm just happy to have won. Before the tournament, I was scared that I would have a score of zero,â Bibisara said on the official broadcast.
Pragg, meanwhile, lost to Caruana with black pieces after playing a provocative move on move 18 (pushing his h pawn to h6) which dared Caruana to capture it with a bishop as a sacrifice. Caruana happily obliged and cast away his bishop to be captured in order to remove two pawns that were protecting Praggâs king. With Caruanaâs queen planted on h6 like an irritating fish bone in the throat, the players maneuvered for a while, before the game ended in the Americanâs favour on move 26.
âWhen he allowed me that sacrifice, I was actually predicting the move h6 when he played it. I had calculated it quite a lot, so when he played it I was happy and I was very eager to sacrifice. Everything afterwards flowed quite smoothly,â Caruana told the official broadcast.
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Meanwhile, just two days after she had stunned Niemann in a blitz game, Vaishali lost the first game of their two games fast classical showdown.
âShe surprised me in the opening with quite a drawish line, so I decided to ruin my pawn structure and go for an imbalance position. It was not good objectively, but I managed to not lose from there,â Niemann said later. âIn time pressure, she unfortunately collapsed.â
