American-Italian Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana (pictured above) has today won by default the first game of his two-game match against Indonesian Grandmaster Susanto Megaranto in the 9th Chess World Cup, which is being held in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, after his opponent’s COVID-19 test result came positive a few minutes (and fifteen moves) after the beginning of the game. Therefore, as per protocol, Megaranto was asked to leave the hall immediately and his game declared a forfeit. And then what? “I hope Mr. Megaranto is feeling well — he seemed to be completely fine during the game, so the way the match ended was a very unpleasant shock. I’ll take a test tomorrow to determine if I was exposed to COVID and hopefully I can continue the event after that”, says Caruana. Photo © Anastasia Korolkova. |
