Norway Chess round 2: Injured Firouzja beats Pragg, Divya stuns Humpy

OSLO: Alireza Firoujza’s second GM Ivan Cheparinov dismissed the notion that the Frenchman’s opponents were disarmed by the sight of him playing in great physical discomfort.Firouzja, who suffered an ankle injury about a fortnight ago and has his right leg in a cast and rested up on a chair, defeated R Praggnanandhaa in the Norway elite chess meet on Tuesday.Cheparinov, who had seen many psychological battles when he was working with Veselin Topalov, told TOI that Firouzja is going through pain and that is disadvantageous enough. Firouzja told the streaming broadcast: “Playing is making me focus and not think about the pain.”In the women’s event, Divya Deshmukh once again got the better of K Humpy, having defeated her in the Women’s World Cup final last year. The 20-year-old needed a tiebreak again, this time an Armageddon, after drawing the classical contest.It’s Gukesh vs Carlsen tonight D Gukesh enjoyed all three parts of last year’s sixth round game with Carlsen the escape act, the Norwegian banging the table in anger and the attention that it got from social media. When asked about that incident, he smiled even though Carlsen was seated next to him. The Norwegian, too, took the reminder lightly When the current and former champions face off in the 4th round on Thursday (starts 8.30pm IST), sparks are expected to fly.