Norway Chess: R Vaishali stopped, Magnus Carlsen takes sole lead

Stavanger, June 3

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The brother-sister Indian duo of R Praggnanandhaa and R Vaishali suffered defeats in their respective section while Magnus Carlsen justified his top billing with a win over an off-colour Ding Liren to surge into sole lead on 12 points in the Norway Chess here.

American Fabiano Caruana also scored a win over compatriot Hikaru Nakamura to help Carlsen emerge as the front-runner for the crown in the six-player double round-robin contest being fought for a total prize pool of $161,000.

Praggnanandhaa lost to Firouzja Alireza of France in the Armageddon tiebreaker after suffering a bit in the classical game, while Vaishali went down to world women’s champion Wenjun Ju of China who outplayed the Indian in the endgame.

With four rounds still to come, Carlsen is now followed by Nakamura on 11 points while Praggnanandhaa is third with 9.5 points.

Alireza is fourth with eight points and Caruana follows him with 6.5 points. Surprisingly, China’s Liren seems completely out of sorts with just 2.5 points, needing a miracle in the tournament.

In the women’s section, Wenjun snatched the lead from Vaishali along with Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine, who won the Armageddon against Tingjie Lei of China. Both Wenjun and Muzychuk have 10.5 points, half-a-point ahead of Vaishali.