Indian chess Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju lost the lead at the FIDE Candidates 2024 event in Toronto, Canada, after being held to a draw by world No 2 Fabiano Caruana on Wednesday.
Gukesh had entered the Round 11 match tied at the top of the leaderboard with Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi with six points each.
The draw against Caruana now takes Gukesh to 6.5 points. Nepomniachtchi, who is a two-time winner of the Candidates event, took the lead after using black pieces to beat Vidit Gujrathi.
The third Indian in the open category, R Praggnanandhaa also suffered a loss after going down to world No 3 Hikaru Nakamura.
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After the 11th round of the contest, Gukesh is now in second place, trailing Nepomniachtchi by half-a-point. Praggnanandhaa is down to fifth spot with 5.5 points and Gujrathi is sixth with five points. The winner of the round robin contest which includes 14 rounds will challenge Ding Liren for the World Championship title.
While the Indian men had a rough day, Koneru Humpy and Vaishali Rameshbabu picked up wins in their respective Round 11 matches in the women’s section.
Humpy came up with a win against Bulgaria’s Nurgyul Salimova to move into the joint third position with 5.5 points, tied with Kateryna Lagno and Aleksandra Goryachkina.
Vaishali picked up her third win of the contest to move up to the seventh spot with 4.5 points. She beat Goryachkina on Wednesday.
