Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa navigated his match against the reigning world champion Ding Liren with remarkable ease, holding him to a draw in the sixth round of the Sinquefield Cup, the final leg of the Grand Chess Tour.
World championship challenger D Gukesh also played out another enterprising draw with France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave while Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi suffered a shocking loss, going down to Fabiano Caruana of United States in just 25 moves.
The sixth round saw no other surprises as the games between Anish Giri of Holland and Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan and Alireza Firouzja of France versus local star Welsey So ended draws.
With just three rounds remaining, Caruana seems determined to give Firouzja a run for his money even though the former still leads the fray on 4 points.
Caruana and Wesley So are on 3.5 points each.
Praggnanandhaa, Gukesh, Vachier-Lagrave and Liren share the fourth spot on three points each with Nepomniachtchi and Abdusattorov following them a half point behind.
Anish Giri stands last on two points in the USD 3,50,000 prize money tournament.
Gukesh has been trying hard in almost every game but so far the lady luck has not smiled on him.
Playing white against Vachier-Lagrave, he went for the King pawn opening and faced the tried and tested Najdorf Sicilian.
Gukesh came up with a double-edged idea in the middle game that fetched him a pawn in return for a king side attack for Vachier-Lagrave. For sometime it looked like the Frenchman had a powerful attack but Gukesh always found the best manoeuvres.
In the end, the Indian had an extra pawn but black had counterplay compensating for the same. The game was drawn vide stalemate after 72 moves.
Praggnanandhaa did not have to sweat much against Liren, who has been pretty solid in the tournament and is not taking much risk ahead of the World Championship match against Gukesh in November.
The Kings Indian defense by Pragganandhaa as black did not see any serious mistake from either side and the game was drawn without much ado.
Results round 6: Ding Liren (Chn, 3) drew with R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 3); Alireza Firouzja (Fra, 4) drew with Wesley So (Usa, 3.5); Anish Giri (Ned, 2) drew with Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb, 2.5); Ian Nepomniachtchi (Fid, 2.5) lost to Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 3.5); D Gukesh (Ind, 3) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 3).
