Stavanger (Norway). India’s R Vaishali defeated compatriot Koneru Humpy to top the women’s category in the Norway Chess Tournament here. Under classical time control, each win in the tournament awards three points. Vaishali has four points after the second round and has also made up for her defeat against China’s Ju Wenjun in the Armageddon (sudden death) game in the first round.
In the women’s category, after India’s newest Grandmaster Vaishali, China’s Lei Tingji and Wenjun are tied for second place with three points. Sweden’s Pia Kremling and Ukraine’s Anna Muzychuk are tied for fourth place with two points, while Humpy is in sixth place with one and a half points in this double round robin competition of six players. In the men’s category, Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa had to face defeat in the Armageddon tie-breaker match after drawing against world champion Ding Liren in the normal time control in the second round. Once again, all three classical games were drawn in the second round of the men’s category of this prestigious tournament.
Magnus Carlsen, Alireza Firouzja and Liren then won the Armageddon game with white pieces and scored 1.5 points. In the normal time control, after a draw, the player playing with white pieces gets 10 minutes while the player playing with black pieces gets seven minutes. But the player playing with white pieces has to win because in case of a draw, the player playing with black pieces is declared the winner. The classical game between Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura and Alireza and Fabiano Caruana ended in a draw.
Norway’s world number one player Carlsen is at the top with three points. America’s Nakamura, China’s Liren and France’s Alireza are jointly in second place with 2.5 points each, followed by Caruana and Praggnanandhaa who have equal two points. In the women’s category, Vaishali defeated India’s number one female player Humpy for the first time. With this win, Vaishali became India’s number two female player in live rating. Two other games between Tingji and Kremling and Wenjun and Muzychuk were drawn. China’s Wenjun and Tingji won the Armageddon game and collected one and a half points.