Prague Chess Festival: Aravindh Chithambaram claims his first win; Gukesh draws

The defending champion GM Aravindh Chithamabaram registered his first win of the tournament in round 2 of the 2026 Prague Chess Festival in Czechia on Thursday.

Aravindh survived an early scare to defeat American Grandmaster Hans Niemann with the black pieces after he blundered his knight in the 31st move.

Having lost his first round game, Aravindh is now joint 4th with 1 point from two games.

Meanwhile, the other Indian in contention, the reigning world Champion Gukesh Dommaraju played yet another draw in his round-2 game against Nodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan.

Both players evened each other out with the high accuracy in the Queen's Gambit declined to play out a draw after just 30 moves with three-fold repetition.

In the third round on Friday, Gukesh will take on Jorden van Foreest of the Netherlands, while Aravindh will be up against Iranian GM Parham Maghsoodloo.

In the Challengers section, India's Divya Deshmukh and experienced Surya Sekhar Ganguly played out a draw in their respective second round games.