Vidit Gujrathi held World champion Magnus Carlsen while debutant R. Praggnanandhaa stunned Jan-Krzyszt of Duda and Sergey Karjakin in scoring an impressive three points from five rounds of the New in Chess Classic rapid online tournament on Saturday.
Vidit and Praggnanandhaa shared the fourth spot behind leader Teimour Radjabov (4 points) and second-placed duo of Alireza Firouzja and Carlsen (3.5 each).
Unbeaten after five tough rounds, Vidit drew in contrasting ways with two Norwegians, Aryan Tari and Carlsen.
He was in trouble against Tari and flawless against Carlsen.
In between, Vidit defeated another Norwegian Johan Sebastian Christiansen. In the day’s last round, Vidit came out unscathed against Hikaru Nakamura for an extremely satisfying day’s work.
Stunning start
Praggnanandhaa started by stunning Duda, famous for ending Magnus Carlsen’s record unbeaten streak in classical chess.
He drew with Englishman Gawain Jones before losing to Wesley So, the most successful player on the Tour so far.
In the next round, he proved equal to Mamedyarov before pulling off another sensational win over Sergey Karjakin.
