‘Missed chances’: Arjun Erigaisi holds Levon Aronian to a draw to take lead in Chennai Grand Masters | Chess News

After starting off the Chennai Grand Masters event with a win on Tuesday, favourite Arjun Erigaisi on Wednesday held American GM Levon Aronian, the second-highest ranked player in the tournament. Playing with white pieces, Erigaisi pushed hard for a second win on the trot, but settled for a draw after a nearly three-hour battle.
Having managed to recover in the opening round against Vidit Gujrathi, Erigaisi admitted that it was no different against Aronian, and felt satisfied with the draw. “Yesterday (on Tuesday), I got outplayed and then I got lucky in the end. Today, it was a very shaky game for both of us. I was worse at one point. We both missed so many chances,” said Arjun.
With the draw Arjun still remains at the top with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Amin Tabatabaei giving him company. Vachier-Lagrave drew with Aravindh Chithambaram after a tactical stand-off, while Tabatabaei defeated Alexey Sarana for a crucial win.
Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo handed Gujrati a second successive defeat despite the Indian staying in the contest till the very end. “It was a very exciting game. We both played very well. The quality of the game was very high until the moment we both got into time trouble. He only lost because he was in time trouble,” said Maghsoodloo after the win.
In the Challengers category, Leon Mendonca came up with an impressive win over Harika Dronavalli to take joint lead with V Pranav, who defeated Abhimanyu Puranik.
And speaking after the game Mendonca said he came prepared for the opening. “So it started off as a French defence and I prepared a bit of French defence before the game. But not this exact variation where she played queen b6 and knight c6. But I had a bit of an idea because I had faced it one month back,” he said.
Once he managed to get out of the initial tussle, Mendonca then completely dominated Harika who was part of the gold medal winning Olympiad team. “And at some point, I think I was still in my notes, if I am not wrong. And she allowed me to get into a better ending because I had more space in the kingside and she was kind of cramped up. And then I kind of induced weaknesses on the kingside because I had a lot more space there,” he said.

The results (second round, Indians unless mentioned): Masters: Amin Tabatabaei (Irn, 1.5) bt Alexey Sarana (Ser, 0.5); Arjun Erigaisi (1.5) drew with Levon Aronian (US, 1); Parham Maghsoodloo (Irn, 1) bt Vidit Gujrathi (0); Aravindh Chithambaram (1) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 1.5).
Challengers: Leon Luke Mendonca (2) bt Harika Dronavalli (0); Abhimanyu Puranik (1) lost to V. Pranav (2); Karthikeyan Murali (0.5) drew with M. Pranesh (0.5); Vaishali Rameshbabu (0.5) drew with Raunak Sadhwani (1.5).