Nepomniachtchi, Vachier-Lagrave shoot into the lead

BUDAPEST Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave took outright leads in Groups C and D respectively after the opening round of the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot’s Fast Classic stage here on Wednesday. Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda shared the Group A lead, while Fabiano Caruana and Liem Le were level atop Group B. All six collected four points from their two games, with Firouzja and Caruana placed first in their groups on the strength of their preliminary blitz rankings. The opening day produced 10 decisive results from 24 games.

Each player faced the same opponent twice with colours reversed, earning three points for a win and one for a draw. For the Indian contingent, R. Vaishali recovered from a first-game defeat to draw her return encounter with Vachier-Lagrave, while R. Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi drew both games against Vincent Keymer and Hans Niemann respectively.

Vachier-Lagrave’s victory over Vaishali was Group D’s only decisive result. Playing with black, the Frenchman capitalised on a late error in a balanced endgame.