Pragyanandha loses: Grandmaster R Vaishali continued his impressive run at the Norway Chess Tournament by defeating Sweden’s veteran grandmaster Pia Kremling, but his brother R Pragyanand lost to American Hikaru Nakamura in the fourth round. This is Vaishali’s second win in the classical category and she has a strong lead of 2.5 points. This Indian player scored a total of 8.5 points. She is followed by women’s world champion Wenjun Zhu of China and Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine in joint second place.
Muzhichuk defeated India’s Koneru Hampi to record his first win of the tournament, while Wenjun defeated compatriot Tingji Lei in an armageddon.
Six rounds of matches are yet to be played in the tournament which is being played on a double round robin basis between six players. Leigh is fourth with five points. Hampi and Kremling have three points each.
In the men’s category, world number one Magnus Carlsen defeated his arch-rival Fabiano Caruana of America. The results of all the men’s category matches were announced on this day.
Indian star Pragyananda suffered a defeat at the hands of Nakamura, while France’s Firoza Alireza beat reigning world champion Ding Liren of China.
After the fourth round in this $1,61,000 tournament, Nakamura leads with seven points. He is half a point ahead of Alireza.
Carlson has 6 points and is third while Pragyanand has slipped to fourth with 5.5 points. Caruana is fifth with five points while Liren is last with just 2.5 points.
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