Mendonca, Pranav Lead Challengers With 2nd Straight Wins
GMs Leon Mendonca and Pranav Venkatesh lead the Challengers with second straight wins, while there is a three-way tie in the Masters section between GMs Arjun Erigaisi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Amin Tabatabaei, all on 1.5, at the end of the second round of the Chennai Grand Masters 2024.
Tabatabaei effected an impressive squeeze on GM Alexey Sarana after getting an edge right out of the opening, to join overnight leaders in the Masters section. GM Parham Magsoodhloo scored over GM Vidit Gujrathi in the only other decisive game of the day. Arjun's draw against GM Levon Aronian proved to be a curious entertainer after both seemed to miss tactical chances in the middlegame.
In the Challengers section, Mendonca beat GM Harika Dronavalli through his trademark active positional style, while Pranav benefitted from a curious blunder by GM Abhimanyu Puranik.
Round three will be on November 07 at 4.30 a.m. ET/11.30 a.m. CEST/3 p.m. IST.
Round 2 Standings: Challengers
Masters
When he sat to face Aronian in the second round, Arjun had "re-crossed" Elo 2800 after his win in the first-round game against Vidit.
This gave way to inevitable expectations, if Arjun could do more.
Arjun vs Levon Aronian! 😍
— Rakesh Kulkarni (@itherocky) November 6, 2024
Maybe the start of something Historic as with a win, @ArjunErigaisi will become the World #2 on the live ratings list! 🙌🏻#ArjunErigaisi#ChennaiGrandMasters pic.twitter.com/gzDIe4jQx5
Arjun's game indeed developed into a complex middlegame, attracting the justifiable expectations. After a sedate opening start, when Arjun showed his aggression with 21.Rd4, the game seemed to move into top gear.
After the game, the combatants spent a long time analyzing the game.
When I quizzed them about the tactical points in the middlegame, both confessed to overlooking 22...e5!! and Aronian came up with one of his typical quips at Arjun, "Okay, you were winning once, I was winning once!"
Okay, you were winning once, I was winning once!
—Levon Aronian
Tabatabaei's win over Sarana was a puzzling spectacle, for Tabataei himself. Sarana seemed to be blitzing his moves out for long into the middlegame, after which he seemed to have got himself into a tangle. After achieving an advantage, Tabatabei showed impressive control of the game, thus giving us the Game Of The Day, annotated by GM Rafael Leitao.
Appearing at the live commentary after the game, Tabatabaei showed his bewilderment on Sarana blitzing out his moves but landing himself into a difficult position, "He went insane! Like, I looked at 22.Qf4 and I am winning. Like, what is going on!? He had one hour and 25 minutes here [on his clock]!
For the second day Vidit missed his way, this time against Maghsoodloo after both the players entered their final minute of the game. In a game of mutual mistakes in time pressure, Vidit committed the final fatal error.
Challengers
Mendonca applied sustained pressure on his opponent in a slightly better endgame.
Was it a game typical of his style? Mendonca smiles, "It was more of a concrete squeeze! My moves weren't too difficult—kind of just flowed the whole game."
My moves weren't too difficult—kind of just flowed the whole game.
—Leon Mendonca
Puranik fell victim to a curious tactic based on the intermediate check theme in his game against Pranav, even though he had considerable time in his clock.
The Chennai Grand Masters 2024, taking place in Chennai, is India's strongest classical super-tournament of the year. It is an eight-player round-robin that takes place from November 5 to 11 with a time control of 90+30. The prize fund is 50 lakhs, which is approximately $60,000.
