B. Adhiban will head the 16-player field in the four-day Indian Challenge rapid online chess tournament, a qualifying event for the two spots available in the cash-rich Meltwater Champions Chess Tour.

Beginning on Friday, the event follows the same format of the Tour, but the duration is limited to one day for each round.

The latest debutant on the tour, R. Praggnanandhaa, will take on two-time National champion M. Karthikeyan, both trainees of Grandmaster R.B. Ramesh. Another interesting clash involves National champion Aravindh Chithambaram and D. Harika.

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K. Sasikiran is the oldest player in the field that features several young talents like Nihal Sarin, D. Gukesh, Arjun Ergiasi, Mitrabha Guha and Aronyak Ghosh.

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The knockout event will be played over the time control of 15 minutes per player, per game, plus 10 seconds of increment time for every move made.

In case of a 2-2 tie, the playoff will comprise two blitz games with five minutes plus three-second increment. If the players are still tied, an Armageddon game will be played with five minutes for the player playing white and four for black. A draw counts as a win for black.

First-round pairings: B. Adhiban-Aronyak Ghosh; M. Karthikeyan-R. Praggnanandhaa; Aravindh Chithambaram-D. Harika; Surya Shekhar Ganguly-N. R. Vaisakh; Nihal Sarin-Arjun Ergiasi; Harsha Bharathakoti-S. P. Sethuraman; Abhijeet Gupta-D. Gukesh; K. Sasikiran-Mitrabha Guha.