CHESS | Nihal stuns top-seed Arjun in a morale-boosting win

Nihal Sarin shrugged off a poor begin to pull off an upset win over the top-seed Arjun Erigaisi within the fourth spherical of the Masters part within the Quantbox Chennai Grandmasters chess match 2025 right here on Sunday.

Quickly-rising German Vincent Keymer drew with the seasoned Dutchman Anish Giri to take his tally to three.5 factors and elevated the lead over the remainder of the sphere to a full level.

Arjun (Elo 2776), coming off a victory over American Ray Robson within the earlier spherical, discovered compatriot Nihal (2692) a tricky nut to crack and went down in 70 strikes.

Nihal, who suffered a loss by the hands of Vidit Gujrathi within the third spherical, bounced again strongly to tame Arjun in a match that lasted over 4 hours.

It was a morale-boosting win for Nihal, who misplaced two of his first three video games.

“A whole lot of ups and downs right now. Arjun defended like an absolute machine. I did get fairly fortunate ultimately. It was fairly exhausting for me after yesterday’s sport. I simply tried my finest to in some way discover the motivation to maintain enjoying,” Nihal after his first win within the match.

In the one different decisive outcome within the Masters occasion, Karthikeyan Murali received the higher of Dutch participant Jorden van Foreest in a 46-move match. The Chennai GM, who gained an entry into the Masters part after the pullout of Vladmir Fedoseev, raised his sport after a quiet begin to overpower his opponent.

Indian GMs Vidit and V. Pranav break up the purpose after a 86-move sport.

The all-American matchup between Ray Robson and Awonder Liang led to a draw after simply 26 strikes.

Within the Challengers part, Abhimanyu Puranik jumped into the only lead after a strong win over R. Vaishali, who has been off-colour to date.

Birthday boy Diptayan Ghosh, in the meantime, celebrated with a victory over G. B. Harshavardhan and is half-a-point behind the chief together with Leon Luke Mendonca.

The outcomes (fourth spherical): Masters: Karthikeyan Murali (2) bt Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 1), Ray Robson (USA, 2) drew with Awonder Liang (USA, 2), Nihal Sarin (1.5) bt Arjun Erigaisi (2.5), V. Pranav (1.5) drew with Vidit Gujrathi (2), Vincent Keymer (Ger, 3.5) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 2).

Challengers: G. B. Harshavardhan (0.5) misplaced to Diptayan Ghosh (3), Pa. Iniyan (2.5) bt Aryan Chopra (1), B. Adhiban (2) drew with M. Pranesh (3), Leon Mendonca (3) bt D. Harika, Abhimanyu Puranik (3.5) bt R. Vaishali (1).

Fifth spherical pairings: Masters: Anish vs. Karthikeyan, Vidit vs. Keymer, Arjun vs. Pranav, Liang vs. Nihal, van Foreest vs. Robson.

Challengers: Vaishali vs. Harshavardhan, Harika vs. Abhimanyu, Pranesh vs. Leon, Aryan vs. Adhiban, Diptayan vs. Iniyan.