Overview
- After a setback against Arjun Erigaisi in round four, Viswanathan Anand beat Hans Niemann and Volodar Murzin to return to the top on 4.5/6.
- Nihal Sarin climbed into joint first with three straight wins, punishing Niemann’s knight blunder, finishing a back-rank tactic versus Murzin, and outplaying Vidit Gujrathi in a knight endgame.
- In the women’s rapid, Kateryna Lagno leads on 4.5/6; Vantika Agrawal has 3 points, Harika Dronavalli, R Vaishali and Rakshitta Ravi sit on 2.5, and Divya Deshmukh has 2.
- Day one closed with Anand and Niemann leading the Open on 2.5/3 and Carissa Yip atop the Women’s field, tightening the race heading into day two.
- The Kolkata invitational runs January 7–11 with three days of 15+10 rapid followed by two days of 3+2 blitz, equal prize funds for Open and Women’s, and a field missing Magnus Carlsen and world champion D Gukesh, who was replaced by Nihal Sarin.