FIDE Grand Swiss Chess: D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa lead Indian challenge

Young Grandmasters D Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa will lead the Indian challenge in the FIDE Grand Swiss, which gets underway in Switzerland on Wednesday. There are two Candidates slots up for grabs for the players in the tournament.

Gukesh is seeded fifth in the tournament, considered the strongest open tournament on the circuit. He will be eyeing a top-two finish to ensure his place in the Candidates' tournament.

Candidates tournament will decide the challenger for the world champion Ding Liren. Praggnanandhaa has qualified for the Candidates after his historic performance in the last World Cup where he won the silver medal.

A total of 14 Indian players will be in action at the tournament in the open section, with the tournament carrying a cash prize worth over INR 3.6 crores. There will be eleven rounds with one rest day after round six.

American Fabiano Caruana starts as the top seed in the elite Swiss, which will see as many as 106 Grandmasters in action out of which a whopping 89 are rated above the 2600 Elo points.

Fabiano's compatriot Hikaru Nakamura is seeded second ahead of Iranian-turned-French Firouza Alireza while Anish Giri of the Netherlands is ranked fourth.

Other Indians in action will be Pentala Harikrishan, Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi, and Nihal Sarin.

S L Narayanan, Aravindh Chithambaram, Raunak Sadhwani, Aryan Chopra, Leon Luke Mendonca, Murali Karthikeyan, Abhijeet Gupta, and B Adhiban complete the impressive Indian lineup.

Grandmaster D Harika is the highest-rated Indian and seeded seventh in a competitive field boasting 15 Grandmasters in the women's category.

Sister of Pragg, R Vaishali, will fancy her chances here after a rock-solid performance in Qatar, where she completed her third and final Grandmaster norm.

With all the Grandmaster norms to her name, Vaishali hopes to inch closer to the 2500 rating points.