Grandmaster and former world junior champion Pentala Harikrishna had to dig deep to beat Yuri Vidal Gonzales of Cuba 3.5-2.5 after two sets of tie-break games to enter round two of the World Chess Cup in Georgia on Wednesday, reported PTI.
India’s B Adhiban also progressed to the round-of-64 after he thrashed Nguyen Ngoc Troung Son of Vietnam in the rapid games.
However, the Murali Karthikeyan crashed out after losing the rapid set of tie-break against Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain.
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand, S P Sethuraman and Vidit Gujarathi have already progressed to the second round. Out of the seven Indians in the fray, five have advanced to the second round.
Interesting challenges lie ahead for all five Indians in the second round except Anand who will start as an overwhelming favourite against Anton Kovalyev of Canada.
Harikrishna and Sethuraman clash against each other, Gujrathi plays Vietnam Le Quang Liem while Adhiban has a tough customer in Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.
Each round in the World Cup consists of two classical games except the final that has four games. Each player plays one game with white and one with black in normal time control and in case of a tied result, rapid, blitz and a final Armageddon games is played to determine the winner.
The total prize fund is USD 1.6 million with the first prize of USD 120,000. Besides, the top two finishers will qualify for the 2018 Candidates’ Tournament.