Sinquefield Cup: Praggnanandhaa still joint second on another day of draws

St. Louis (US), Aug 25 (PTI) Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa settled for his fifth consecutive draw, splitting points with Poland's Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the sixth round of the Sinquefield Cup, part of the Grand Chess Tour.

With this result, Praggnanandhaa moved to 3.5 points from six games, maintaining a joint second position. Meanwhile, American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana held on to his lead with 4 points, staying half a point ahead of the field.

Giving Praggnanandhaa company is American Levon Aronian. World champion D Gukesh is still tied for the fourth spot on 3 points along with Wesley So and Samuel Sevian of United States, and the French duo of Alireza Firouzja of and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

In the sixth round Gukesh survived another scare before steering the game to a draw with Firouzja.

On another all-drawn day, Caruana shared the point with Sevian and Nodirbek Abdusattorov got the same result against Vachier-Lagrave. Aronian also drew with Wesley making it the second day in a row when all the games were drawn.

Praggnanandhaa opted for the Alapin variation against the Sicilian defense of Duda and obtained some optical advantage.

However, Duda struck in time with a rook sacrifice after white castled on the queen side. Praggnanandhaa gave back the extra material and drew vide perpetual checks. The game lasted just 32 moves.

Gukesh started with the King pawn as well with white and also faced the Sicilian defense. It was Classical setup by Gukesh wherein Firouzja played imaginatively in the middle game to seize the initiative. Gukesh was looking at an inferior position and even lost a pawn.

However, the technicalities remained and with some fine defense Gukesh reached a minor piece endgame and eventually made black's extra pawn immaterial.

Caruana drew with Sevian when the later decided against pressing hard out of a Ragozine defense game. The scales were even till Caruana went for a dubious pawn exchange and his king side was under scrutiny when Sevian decided to end the game through repetition. It was over in just 27 moves.

Pairings round 6: R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 3.5) drew with Duda Jan-Krzysztof (Pol, 2.5); D Gukesh (Ind, 3) drew with Alireza Firouzja (Fra, 3); Samuel Sevian (Usa, 3) drew with Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 4); Levon Aronian (Usa, 3.5) drew with Wesley So (Usa, 3); Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb, 1.5) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 3). PTI COR APA APA