Mumbai, Dec. 27 -- Such is the modern chess calendar that two days after finishing their gig for a franchise league in Mumbai, some of the world's top chess stars were back in action in Doha for the season-ending World Rapid and Blitz Championship. The first day of Rapid games, featuring 5 of the 13-round format in the Swiss system, saw 42 Indians across the Open and women's category get down to work. And, a rare sighting of Magnus Carlsen in a FIDE tournament (even rarer? Without jeans). Arjun Ergaisi, the highest-seeded player from India, played out a wild match but kept raking up the wins to accompany Carlsen as the only two men with 4/4 wins. Erigaisi survived a tight endgame with gritty defence to play out a draw with Carlsen in Round 5. At 4.5 points, the two were joined by D Gukesh, who had four straight wins after starting with a draw, at the top of the standings. A much younger and less experienced Indian, H Goutham Krishna, also produced a rousing start. Coming off a 53-move Round 1 win with white against 16-year-old French International Master Marco Materia, Arjun Erigaisi would have hoped for another relatively straightforward Round 2 with compatriot Sandipan Chanda. But the contest between the GM from Kolkata, rated 2553 in rapid, and Erigaisi, rated 2714, turned out to be anything but that. In a wild game dictated by blunders from either side and where the evaluation bar swung back and forth frequently, Erigaisi eked out a win with black from positions that were tricky on several occasions. The blunders began on the 17th move, when Chanda played pawn to f3 to hand black an early advantage. Erigaisi though wasn't clinical enough to ride it, his 20th move (gxf4) giving away the edge to white. With both under time pressure, a flurry of blunders were exchanged. When Erigaisi blundered to move his queen to e8 on the 30th move with 13 seconds left, the engines showed Chanda to be in pole position to script a stunning upset. However, Chanda also blundered on the very next move (queen xe8+), and now it was black suddenly with the victory in sight. Erigaisi wasn't going to let the latest opportunity slip, as Chanda resigned after 56 moves. Giving the likes of Erigaisi and Carlsen company at the top of the standings after Round 3 was an unlikely Indian - H Goutham Krishna. The 15-year-old International Master from Kerala, with an Elo of 2392, went on a spree of beating higher-rated players across the first three rounds. He first beat 30-year-old Serbian GM Indjic Aleksandar (rated 2587) playing with white, before stunning Indian GM Aravindh Chithambaram (2590) with black. Goutham wasn't done. He continued his march against Teimour Radjabov, the 38-year-old Azerbaijani GM who earned the title at 14 and is currently rated 2661, with white. He drew his Round 4 against GM Alexander Grischuk (2677). The teen finished second in the 62nd Indian National Championship. Reigning world classical champion D Gukesh had played out his expectations from this event while speaking in the pre-tournament press conference on Thursday. He began in sedate fashion, settling for a draw with 21-year-old Canadian GM Rodrigue-Lemieux Shawn, rated below (2478) the Indian champion (2692). It didn't take too long for Gukesh to get up and running on the winners' list. He beat Russian GM Sergey Drygalov (2489) in Round 2 with white, before also defeating Russia's Petrov Nikita (2543) in the following round with black. R Praggnanandhaa got the win in his opening round but drew with GM Puranik Abhimanyu. Magnus Carlsen was fashionably late for his opening match, and, almost un-fashionably for him, not sporting jeans. The jeans-wearing Norwegian star had made headlines in the previous World Rapid, with FIDE slapping a heavy fine on him. In the women's section, Indians Vaishali R and Harika Dronavalli won their first three rounds respectively to sit high up in the standings. Vaishali (2359) stunned China's Tan Zhongyi (2507) in a dramatic Round 3 contest....