Vidit Gujrathi held by 12-year-old ''Messi of Chess'' Oro Faustino

Panjim, Nov 4 (PTI) Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi was held to a draw by 12-year-old Argentine sensation Oro Faustino in the first game of the second round of the FIDE World Chess Cup, here on Tuesday.

Called the 'Messi of Chess' back home due to his extraordinary talent and rapid rise in the sport, Faustino, who famously defeated higher ranked Ante Brkic of Croatia in the opener, came up with another impressive performance with his black pieces.

The Argentinian prodigy started off with the Berlin defence and Gujrathi went for the middle game which gave an easy equality to Faustino. The Indian did try to find some flaws in black’s position but decided against any undue risk and repeated the position three times.

The game lasted 28 moves.

In the return game under Classical time format, Gujrathi will play with the black pieces on Wednesday and if the deadlock continues, the players will play games under shorter duration to determine the winner.

This is Gujrathi’s last attempt to find a place in the Candidates tournament of 2026 for which the top three from here would qualify.

Like Gujrathi, R Praggnanandhaa also had to settle for a draw with Temur Kuybokarov of Australia. For once, the Indian could not get going as black remained solid for the majority of the game. The endgame with Bishops of opposite colours did not offer any chances either.

Levon Aronian defeated young Grandmaster Aronyak Ghosh with white pieces. It was a crushing victory for Aronian who outclassed Ghosh in the middle game and launched a decisive attack against the black king.

Meanwhile, the highest-rated Arjun Erigaisi had a winning start to his campaign at the expense of Martin Petrov of Bulgaria.

Petrov fought valiantly for a long time with his white pieces but later missed the thread and ended up blundering his knight, when his time ran short.

Arjun won in 37 moves.

Amongst other Indians in the fray, Surya Shekhar Ganguly could not match the attacking skills of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave while Diptayan Ghosh kicked off with a good result as he drew with Russian and former world championship challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Indian results round 2 game 1: D Gukesh Nogerbek Kazybek (Kaz); Martin Petrov (Bul) lost to Arjun Erigaisi; R Praggnanandhaa drew with Temur Kuybokarov (Aus); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) beat Surya Shekhar Ganguly; Diptayan Ghosh drew with Ian Nepomniachtchi (Fid); Levon Aronian (Usa) beat Aronyak Ghosh; Vidit Santosh Gujrathi drew with Oro Faustino (Arg); Karthik Venkataraman drew with Aravindh Chithambaram; Kourkoulos-Arditis Stamatis (Gre) Nihal Sarin; Nesterov Arseniy(Fid) drew with P Harikrishna; Nguyen Thai Dai Van (Cze) drew with Pa Iniyan; Idani Pouya (Iri) Murali Karthikeyan; S L Narayanan drew with Nikita Vitiugov (Eng); Dmitrij Kollars (Ger) drew with M Pranesh; Aryan Tari (Nor) V Pranav; Robert Hovhannisyan (Arm) drew with Raunak Sadhwani. PTI COR DDV