Indian Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram VR kept his nerves against a much experienced Michael Adams to clinch the first round encounter in the second blitz game in the Fide Chess World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia, on Thursday.
The 20-year-old now joins the likes of GM Nihal Sarin, GM P Harikrishna, GM Vidit Gujrathi and GM B Adhiban in the second round.
Aravindh, who had drawn both the classic games on Wednesday, had to fight hard to salvage draws in the four rapid games and the engine showed a difficult position for the Indian, playing black in the first blitz game. However, he managed to hang on for a draw and then made the most of his pawn advantage to force Adams into surrender after 69 moves in the second game.
He will now face Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia in the second round.
While Aravindh managed to wriggle past Adams, there was no such luck for the other four Indians.
GM Abhijeet Gupta began with a win over GM Anton Korobov with black pieces in the first rapid game but then lost the next three to be knocked out in the first round. GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly managed to prolong the first round tie to third and fourth rapid games after drawing the first two but lost both of them against GM Vladimir Fedoseev, who will be Harikrishna’s opponent in the next round.
In the other matches, GM SP Sethuraman lost both his rapid games against Tamir Nabaty while GM SL Narayanan could not avoid a loss with black pieces in the second game after he was held to a draw by GM David Anton Guijarro.
In the other second round matches, Gujrathi will take on GM Aleksandr Rakhmanov, while Adhiban will meet GM Yangyi Yu of China and