Vandan, a Candidate Master (CM) with a standard FIDE rating of 2288, engaged Carlsen in the Centre Attack of the Giuoco Piano in a 5-minute blitz game with the white pieces. Despite the rating disparity, his chess.com blitz rating of 2810 suggests he is more than capable of holding his own in faster time controls against the world’s best.

Vandan blitzed out his opening moves to gain a slight edge on the clock. By the first 20 moves, the duo had exchanged a couple of pawns, a knight, and a rook, leaving the Indian with a slightly better and open position in the middlegame.

A few moves later, Carlsen was down by nearly a minute as the pressure kept slowly building on him. He spent 20 seconds to retreat his knight back to c7 on the 25th move. Vandan then spent 36 seconds to initiate a bishop exchange, but instead of taking back the piece, Carlsen made the biggest blunder of the game, moving his king to f8. This allowed Vandan to force another rook trade and go up an exchange. With one less piece, Carlsen traded queens and entered the endgame hoping to grind out a win or even swindle one, but the teenager held his nerves and forced a resignation on the 50th move.

Vandan played two more rounds, notching up a total of three wins in four rounds before calling it a day, opting out of the 11-round event.

Vietnam’s Tuan Minh Le, Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo, and India’s Arjun Erigaisi finished on top with 9.5 points each.