Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave took outright leads in Groups C and D respectively after the opening round of the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot’s Fast Classic stage here on Wednesday.

Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda shared the Group A lead, while Fabiano Caruana and Liem Le were level atop Group B. All six collected four points from their two games, with Firouzja and Caruana placed first in their groups on the strength of their preliminary blitz rankings.

The opening day produced 10 decisive results from 24 games. Each player faced the same opponent twice with colours reversed, earning three points for a win and one for a draw.

For the Indian contingent, R. Vaishali recovered from a first-game defeat to draw her return encounter with Vachier-Lagrave, while R. Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi drew both games against Vincent Keymer and Hans Niemann respectively.

Vachier-Lagrave’s victory over Vaishali was Group D’s only decisive result. Playing with black, the Frenchman capitalised on a late error in a balanced endgame. The subsequent draw took him to four points, two ahead of Arjun, Niemann, Wesley So and Bibisara Assaubayeva. Vaishali finished the day with one point.

In Group C, Nepomniachtchi defeated Abhimanyu Mishra before drawing their second game to move into the lead. World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri drew twice, finishing with two points each.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Haik Martirosyan exchanged victories, both winning with black, to occupy the next two places behind Nepomniachtchi on three points apiece.

Firouzja began by beating Nodirbek Abdusattorov, capitalising on a mistake before defending well in the return fixture to secure a draw. Duda matched his four-point tally by drawing his first game against Andrew Hong and winning the second with white.

Levon Aronian and Jorden van Foreest split their encounters, with both wins coming with black, to finish on three points each.

Caruana opened his Group B campaign by beating Hungary’s Richard Rapport with black before drawing the return game. Le followed the reverse sequence against Vladislav Artemiev, drawing first and then winning.

Praggnanandhaa and Keymer remained two points behind the leaders after neither could break through in the two games.

Only the four group winners will advance to the knockout bracket that decides the title; the remaining players will contest separate placing brackets.

The top results (First round): Group B: R. Praggnanandhaa drew twice with Vincent Keymer; Group C: Magnus Carlsen drew twice with Anish Giri; Group D: R. Vaishali lost to and drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Arjun Erigaisi drew twice with Hans Niemann.

(The writer is in Budapet at the invitation of Total Chess).