A controversy erupted at a chess tournament in Uzbekistan after India’s chess star Vantika Agrawal was handed a defeat in a game she had actually drawn. The incident took place during the President’s Cup, which is being held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The nine-round tournament commenced on Thursday, with round 3 being played on Saturday.
Vantika Agrawal took to social media to express her frustration, revealing that her draw in round 3 had been wrongly recorded as a loss. She criticized the tournament’s unusual rules, which prevented any corrections to the result. In that round, Vantika was competing against Uzbekistan’s Mukhammadzokhid Suyarov.
“My game in 3rd round of President’s Cup in Uzbekistan ended as a draw. I submitted the scoresheet with the right result. Then when I checked the pairing (for round 4) it was published as a loss for me. I immediately mailed them and informed them but they said that it’s FIDE’s rule that they can’t do anything,” Vantika Agrawal lamented in a social media post.
“So I want to ask FIDE why they made such a rule. If it’s arbiter’s mistake why should I suffer I have spent lots of money to play this tournament,” she added.
Vantika Agrawal pulls out from President Cup in Uzbekistan
Later in the day, Vantika Agrawal shared an update on social media announcing her decision to withdraw from the tournament. “I have withdrawn from the tournament. I can’t continue playing in a tournament where wrong result and pairings has been published because of arbiter’s fault and there is no way to correct it inspite of immediate information. There is no guarantee that this will not happen again,” she said in X.
All about Vantika Agrawal
Vantika Agrawal was a key player for the Indian women’s chess team, helping secure a gold medal at the recent Chess Olympiad. She emerged as one of India’s standout stars in 2024, clinching the individual gold medal on board 4 at the Olympiad in Budapest.
At the Tata Steel Chess India tournament in Kolkata, she impressed with a joint third-place finish in the blitz event and secured third place in the rapid section, outperforming notable compatriots like grandmasters Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, and Vaishali, as well as Divya Deshmukh.