Indians faltered in the big matches in both sections after Magnus Carlsen lived up to his reputation and Russia’s Valentina Gunina proved a worthy champion in the World blitz chess championship in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Saturday. In a second successful title-defence in less than 48 hours, Carlsen retained the World blitz crown to go with the World rapid trophy. For Carlsen, the reigning World Cup winner, this was a seventh World blitz title and 17th World title across formats.
For first-time winner Gunina, too, the lone loss on the final day did not hurt her plans. The overnight leader, seeded a distant 24th, won the last two rounds for a tally of 14 points from 17 rounds.
The Indians had poor final day. Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin, the duo among the overnight leaders, failed to get going on the home stretch.
Arjun lost to Carlsen and Levon Aronian, besides behind held four times. His victories over R. Praggnanandhaa, Ian Nepomniachtchi and last-round rival Baadur Jobava were good enough only for the seventh spot.
A luckless and winless Nihal tumbled to the 43rd place after losing three games, including the last two, and drawing seven times.
Among the women, 12th seed D. Harika finished seventh after losing the final round. On this day, she drew the first four rounds and lost the 14th, won the next two before the loss to Zhu Jiner shattered her dreams of a possible medal.
Final standings (top-five): Open (points from 21 rounds): 1. Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 15.5), 2. Daniil Dubov (FIDE, 15), 3. Vladislav Artemiev (FIDE, 14.5), 4. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 14), 5. Ian Nepomniachtchi (FIDE, 13.5).
Women (points from 17 rounds): Valentina Gunina (FIDE, 14), Alexandra Kosteniuk (Sui, 13.5), 3. Zhu Jiner (Chn, 12.5), 4. Turmunkh Munkhzul (Mgl, 11.5), 5. Kateryna Lagno (FIDE, 11.5).
Indians’ standings: Open: 7. Arjun Erigaisi (13), 13. Aravindh Chithambaram (13), 19. R. Praggnanandhaa (12.5), 25. Nihal Sarin (12), 33. S. L. Narayanan (12), 48. D. Gukesh (11.5), 59. Bharath Subramaniyam (11), 62. Vidit Gujrathi (11), 64. Raunak Sadhwani (11), 72. B. Adhiban (11), 75. Karthik Venkataraman (11), 80. Mitrabha Guha (10.5), 89. Aditya Mittal (10.5), 97. V. Pranav (10.5), 116. M. Pranesh (9.5), 134. Sandipan Chanda (9.5), 160. Surya Shekhar Ganguly (8.5).
Women: 7. D. Harika (11), 13. Divya Deshmukh (11), 17. K. Humpy (10.5), 27. M. Varshini Sahithi (10), 36. R. Vaishali (9.5), 46. N. Priyanka (9), 59. Rakshitta Ravi (8.5), 65. Padmini Rout (8.5), 83. V. Sarayu (7.5), 93. B. Savitha Shri (7). 96. Soumya Swaminathan (7).
