Chess: Vidit Gujrathi loses in quarter-finals of FIDE World Cup as Indian challenge ends

The Indian challenge in the FIDE chess World Cup ended on Thursday when Grandmaster Vidit Santosh Gujrathi lost the second game of the men’s quarter-finals to Jan-Krzystof Duda in Sochi, Russia.

The 26-year old India No.3 faltered against his Polish opponent in a 50-move encounter after having drawn the first game of the two-game mini-match on Wednesday.

Playing black in the crucial game, Gujrathi lost out as Duda handled the unbalanced ending better and created opportunities. He cashed in when the Indian player slipped and finished the game with precise calculation.

This was the first time Gujrathi had reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup.

Duda’s reward for beating the India GM is a semi-final clash against world No.1 Magnus Carlsen.

The Norwegian world champion stormed into the last four with a comprehensive 2-0 win over Frenchman Etienne Bacrot.

In another quarter-final match, Sergey Karjakin (Russia) came back strongly to win the second game against Sam Shankland (USA) to level the score at 1-1 and force a tie-break.

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