In the final stage of the Grand Chess Tour, the sixth round of the Sinquefield Cup, Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa handled his match against the current world champion Ding Liren with remarkable ease, securing a draw. D Gukesh, a strong contender for the world championship title, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France engaged in another exciting draw. At the same time, Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia lost shockingly to American Fabiano Caruana in just 25 moves.
The matches between Anish Giri of Holland Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan and Alireza Firouzja of France against local sensation Welsey in the sixth round yielded no further surprises. Thus, draws came to an end.
Firouzja still leads the fight by four points, but Caruana intends to give him a run for his money with just three rounds left. Wesley So and Caruana both have 3.5 points. On three points apiece, Praggnanandhaa, Gukesh, Vachier-Lagrave, and Liren occupy the fourth position; Nepomniachtchi and Abdusattorov are behind them by a half point.
With two points, Anish Giri is in last place in the USD 3,50,000 prize money competition. Gukesh has been giving it his all in practically every game, but so far, good fortune has not been on his side. He decided for the King pawn opening against Vachier-Lagrave, playing white against the well-tried Najdorf Sicilian.
In the middle game, Gukesh had a double-edged move that won him a piece in exchange for Vachier-Lagrave’s kingside onslaught. The Frenchman appeared to have a strong offensive for a while, but Gukesh was always able to come up with the best moves. In the end, the Indian had an extra pawn but the black had counterplay compensating for the same. The game was drawn vide stalemate after 72 moves.
Liren, who has been playing well in the competition and is not taking many chances in front of the World Championship match against Gukesh in November, did not make Praggnanandhaa sweat too much. The game was drawn without much fuss because of Praggnanandhaa’s Kings Indian defense, which saw no significant errors from either side when playing black.
Meanwhile, Indian chess players Raunak Sadhwani and Divya Deshmukh missed the podium finish by a small margin in the Masters group of the 30th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival. Though the teenage masters from Nagpur missed the chance to stand on the podium, Raunak finished joint second with 6.5 points, while Divya shared the third position with six points in her kitty.
