Norway Chess: R Praggnanandhaa Loses To Magnus Carlsen; Vaishali Beats Anna Muzychuk

Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa went down fighting against top seed Magnus Carlsen of Norway while his elder sister defeated overnight sole leader Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine in the eighth round of Norway chess tournament here. With the win, Carlsen stretched his lead to a full point over Hikaru Nakamura of United States, who lost to Firouzja Alireza of France. Meanwhile, World champion Ding Liren of China's dismal run continued as he lost to Fabiano Caruana of United States.

With just two rounds to go in the six-player double round-robin tournament, Carlsen has 14.5 points ahead of Nakamura on 13.5. Praggnanandhaa on 12 is in third spot, a full point clear of Alireza.

Caruana is on nine occupying the fifth spot while Liren seemed to have resigned to his fate in this event being distant last on 4.5 points.

In the women's section, world champion Wenjun Ju of China scored over Pia Cramling of Sweden to surge ahead of the field on 14.5 points benefitting from Muzychuk's loss against Vaishali.

The Ukrainian remained in the second spot on 13 points, 1.5 points ahead of Vaishali and Tingjie Lei of China who accounted for Koneru Humpy in the other game of the day.

Humpy on eight points remained fifth in the standings, 3.5 points more than Cramling in the USD 161000 prize money tournament in both the sections.

All the three games in the in the men's category ended in draws in the Classical leading to Armageddon game as per tournament rules.

Carlsen could not really dent Praggnanandhaa's solid play in the Classical and with a laboured effort the world number one won a pawn but only ended up reaching a theoretically drawn rooks and pawns endgame.

However, in the return game, Praggnanandhaa could not match the guile of Carlsen and