The reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju started his campaign at the 2026 Prague Chess Festival with a draw against Hans Niemann of the United States on Wednesday.
Playing with the white pieces, Gukesh survived some tense moments early on in the match before holding steady to play out a 62-move draw.
A piece sacrifice from Niemann as early as the 13th move seemed to have put the Indian in a spot of bother before he pulled through.
It was the only match in the first round of the tournament which ended in a draw.
Meanwhile the other Indian in contention, Aravindh Chitambaram, went down to Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan with the black pieces.
Aravindh, who is the reigning champion and had shot to fame with his Prague Chess Festival title win last year, was outplayed in the late middle game.
Elsewhere in the Challengers section, India’s Divya Deshmukh played out a draw with Benjamin Gledura whereas the experienced Surya Sekhar Ganguly lost to Thomas Beersden.
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