R Praggnanandhaa defeats world champion Ding Liren in Armageddon match – Firstpost

R Praggnanandhaa followed his victories over Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana by defeating world champion Ding Liren in the seventh round of the Norwegian chess tournament on Monday. Praggnanandhaa and Liren were locked in a stalemate in the classic format before the Indian triumphed in the Armageddon decider.

Liren, last in the ranking after four consecutive defeats, avoided making five and took the upper hand until the last shots.

Ding had gotten the better of Praggnanandhaa in the Armageddon match with the white pieces earlier in the tournament. It looked like he would do the same thing with the black pieces, but he forgot a move that could have been fatal for Praggnanandhaa.

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Elsewhere, Hikaru Nakamura closed the gap on Norwegian chess leader Carlsen to half a point after winning an Armageddon thriller. Caruana’s knightly sacrifice against Alireza Firouzja almost backfired, but he escaped classic chess before the Frenchman left no chance in the decider.

With three rounds remaining, Carlsen leads the Open event with 13 points. Behind him are Nakamura (with 12.5 points) and R Praggnanandhaa (with 11 points). Firouzja (9.5), Caruana (7.5) and Liren (3.5) form the bottom three in the six-a-side competition.

In Norway’s women’s chess competition, Anna Muzychuk took sole lead after becoming the first player to win a mini-match against women’s world champion Ju Wenjun. R Vaishali’s title hopes suffered a major blow when she lost in classical chess to compatriot Koneru Humpy, while Lei Tingjie beat Pia Cramling at Armageddon.