Arjun Erigaisi beat Serbia’s Alexandr Predke in the third round of the Chennai Grand Masters Chess Championship at The Leela Palace hotel on Sunday.
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Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo could only manage to draw with white versus D. Gukesh.
Having lost to Pavel Eljanov (Ukraine) and drawn with Levon Aronian (USA) in the first two rounds, Maghsoodloo needed to win all the remaining five rounds to secure the overall 5.5 points he needs to qualify for the 2024 Candidates tournament.
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He now has only one point from the three rounds and even if he wins the rest of the four rounds, he could only get to a maximum of 5 points and most likely out of the Candidates race.
Sanan Sjugirov (Hungary), favoured to win the tournament by the Dutch chess couple Anish Giri and Sopiko Guramishvili on the commentary, settled for a draw with white against Aronian.
But he’s still the joint-leader with P. Harikrishna, who drew with Eljanov. Both have two points.
The results (third round): Parham Maghsoodloo (Irn) 0.5 (1) drew with D. Gukesh 0.5 (1.5); Sanan Sjugirov (Hun) 0.5 (2) drew with Levon Aronian (USA) 0.5 (1.5); P. Harikrishna 0.5 (2) drew with Pavel Eljanov (Ukr) 0.5 (1.5); Arjun Erigaisi 1 (1.5) bt Alexandr Predke (Srb) 0 (1).