Azerbaijani grandmaster enters last day of Indian chess tournament as second-best

Azerbaijani chess grandmaster Shahriyar Mammadyarov enters the last day of the Tata Steel Chess India Blitz 2022 tournament in second place. 

The tournament started on November 29 in the Indian city of Kolkata as defined by Chess.com is a series of rapid and blitz games, in which top chess players compete against each other with three days for rapid games and three others for blitz.

Mammadyarov started the tournament with three wins, defeating the host country's Domaraj Gukesh, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa as well as Wesley So (US), before drawing with Hikaru Nakamura (US) and Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran), as Azerisport reported.

He went on to beat India's Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin before losing to Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) and Vidit Santosh Gujarati (India).

Thanks to those matches, Mammadyarov gathered six points which shot him to second place in the tournament, with Arjun Erigaisi surpassing him by only 0.5 points to lead the tournament.

He will play a series of blitz games with each participant playing everyone else twice for a total of 3 minute per match.

The prize pool of the tournament is $17,500.