Arjun Erigaisi Beats Gukesh D. In Junior Speed Chess Championship
In an all-Indian clash on Saturday, GM Arjun Erigaisi defeated Gukesh D. with a big score: 18-8. It was the second match in the Junior Speed Chess Championship sponsored by ChessKid.
This second edition of the junior championship has five players from India, and two of them, who both became GMs before they turned 15, met in the first round.
The 14-year-old Gukesh is from Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu and learned to play chess when he was six and a half. The 17-year-old Erigaisi is from Hyderabad in the state of Telangana and learned the game at age eight.
The older was the heavy favorite according to Chess.com's odds calculations, and as it turned out, that wasn't far from the truth.
Erigaisi (@GHANDEEVAM2003) won most convincingly as he defeated Gukesh (@GukeshDommaraju) in all three segments: 6-2 in the five-minute games, 5.5-2.5 in the three-minute, and 6.5-3.5 in the bullet.
A tough early loss for Gukesh was game seven, where he failed to hold a two versus three rook endgame and then blundered mate in the end (where it was lost already).
Game 10, the second 3+1 game, was a fantastic fight and especially enjoyable to watch with the commentary by GM Vidit Gujrathi and GM Daniel Naroditsky.
All games
Gukesh earned $153.85 based on win percentage; Erigaisi won $500 for the victory plus $346.16 on percentage, totaling $846.16. He moves on to the next round, where he will play the winner of the match GM Jeffery Xiong vs. GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov that is on September 21.
The live broadcast of the match.
Remaining matches in the round of 16:
- Sept. 13: Sam Sevian vs. Amin Tabatabaei at 9 a.m. Pacific / 18:00 Central Europe
- Sept. 18: Haik Martirosyan vs. Vincent Keymer at 9 a.m. Pacific / 18:00 Central Europe
- Sept. 19: Parham Maghsoodloo vs. Praggnanandhaa R. at 9 a.m. Pacific / 18:00 Central Europe
- Sept. 20: Alexey Sarana vs. Andrey Esipenko at 9 a.m. Pacific / 18:00 Central Europe
- Sept. 21: Jeffery Xiong vs. Nodirbek Abdusattorov at 9 a.m. Pacific / 18:00 Central Europe
- Sept. 23: Anton Smirnov vs. Raunak Sadhwani at 9 a.m. Pacific / 18:00 Central Europe
The 2020 Chess.com Junior Speed Chess Championships is sponsored by ChessKid, the world's number-one site for kids to learn and play chess. Sixteen GMs younger than 21 years old play in a knockout format with 90 minutes of 5|1 blitz, 60 minutes of 3|1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1|1 bullet chess. In this second edition, there's a total prize fund of $25,000 on the line. Find all information here.
See also:
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