Vidit draws with Nakamura; Vaishali held by Sophie Millet

Isle of Man, Nov 3 (PTI) Overnight sole leader Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi played out a quick draw with Hikaru Nakamura of USA while R Vaishali missed out on opportunities to split a point with French Sophie Millet in the FIDE Grand Swiss now underway here.

Top seed Fabiano Caruana of the United States, Andrey Esipenko of Russia and Deac Bogdan-Daniel of Romania joined Gujrathi in the lead on six points and it looks like a photo-finish is on the cards with just three rounds remaining in the USD 460000 prize money tournament.

The other Indian in close contention in the open section, Arjun Erigaisi, drew with Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine and is in a wolf-pack of nine players on 5.5 points looking to seal a berth in the top two that guarantees a place in the next candidates tournament.

Vidit played out one of the shortest games of the event. Playing the white side of a Sicilian Alapin, the Indian did not face much complication on board and Nakamura equalized easily. The game lasted a mere 16 moves.

Arjun got some intimidating initiative with white pieces against Kuzubov. An excellent control in the centre in the middle game and potential for what looked like a dangerous king side attack had everyone gunning for Arjun but for the second day in a row the Indian slipped and the game ended in a draw.

In the women's section Vaishali too missed out yet again after a promising start against Millet. The ensuing middle game arising out of a King pawn game saw Vaishali coming out guns blazing with some finely crafted manoeuvres only to let the position go out of hands a few minutes later.

The sister of Praggnanandhaa fought on but in the end it was a stalemate on board after 70 moves.

Vaishali remained in a three-way lead on six points along with her overnight co-leaders Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria and Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine. Four players - Tan Zhongyi of China, Leya Garifullina of Russia, Batkhuyag Munguntuul of Mongolia and Millet - are in close pursuit of the leaders a half point behind.

In the open section Nihal Sarin raised vision of coming close to the podium defeating Niclas Huschenbeth of Germany and reaching five points. Praggnanandhaa was held to a draw by Nodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan. The Indian missed a great opportunity for his second straight victory following a blunder by Yakubboev in a theoretical rook and pawns endgame.

In other notable results, P Harikrishna, Aryan Chopra and S L Narayanan were held to draws by Rinat Jumabayev of Kazakhstan, Mathias Bluebaum of Germany and Aryan Tari of Norway respectively.

In the women's section Tania Sachdev won as white against Mariam Mkrtchyan of Armenia while D Harika was held to a draw by Teodora Injac of Serbia. Both Tania and Harika have four points apiece.

Important and Indian results round 8 (Indians unless specified): Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (6) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 6); Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 6) beat Etienne Bacrot (Fra, 5); Andrey Esipenko (Fid, 6) beat Vincent Keymer (Ger, 5); Arjun Erigaisi (5.5) drew with Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 5.5); Deac Bogdan-Daniel (Rou, 6) beat Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Pol, 5); Alexandr Predke (Srb, 5.5) drew with Vladimir Fedoseev (Slo, 5.5); Samuel Sevian (Usa, 5.5) beat Alireza Firouzja (Fra, 4.5); Alexey Sarana (Srb, 5.5) beat Richard Rapport (Rou, 4.5); Ivan Cheparinov (Bul, 5.5) beat Duda Jan-Krzysztof (Pol, 4.5); Samvel Ter-Sahakyan (Arm, 4.5) lost to Parham Maghsoodloo (Iri, 5.5); Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb, 4.5) drew with R Praggnanandhaa (4.5); Nihal Sarin (5) beat Niclas Huschenbeth (Ger, 4); Rinat Jumabayev (Kaz, 4) drew with P Harikrishna (4); Aryan Chopra (4) drew with Matthias Bluebaum (Ger, 4); Aryan Tari (4) drew with S L Narayanan (4); Aravindh Chithambaram (4.5) beat Maurizzi Marc`andria (Fra, 3.5); D Gukesh (3.5) drew with Nikolas Theodorou (Gre, 3.5); Abhijeet Gupta (3.5) drew with Haik Martirosyan (Arm, 3.5); Amin Tabatabaei (Iri, 4) beat Murali Karthikeyan (3); Raunak Sadhwani (3.5) drew with Shreyas Royal (Eng, 3.5); B Adhiban (3) drew with Alexander Donchenko (Ger, 3) Ihor Samunenkov (3) drew with Leon Luke Mendonca (3).

Women: Anna Muzychuk (Ukr, 6) drew with Antoaneta Stefanova (Bul, 6) R Vaishali (6) drew with Sophie Milliet (Fra, 5.5); Tan Zhongyi (Chn, 5.5) beat Alexandra Goryachkina (Fid, 5); Leya Garifullina (Fid, 5.5) beat Polina Shuvalova (Fid, 4.5); Batkhuyag Munguntuul (Mgl, 5.5) beat Irina Bulmaga (Rou, 4.5); D Harika (4) drew with Teodora Injac (Srb, 4); Tania Sachdev (4) beat Mariam Mkrtchyan (Arm, 3); Vantika Agrawal (3) drew with B Savitha Shri (3); Lina Nassr (Alg, 1) lost to Divya Deshmukh (3). PTI Cor AH AH