Archive photo for D. Gukesh.

Indian grandmaster D. Gukesh, challenger for the world championship, played a thrilling draw with Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi and is tied for second place after the second round of the Sinquefield Cup, the last event of this year’s Grand Chess Tour.

After a relatively easy draw against reigning world champion Ding Liren of China, Gukesh played a thrilling match against Nepomniachtchi in a Catalan opening game on Tuesday (20 August 2024).

The Indian position was marginally better with the white pieces for most of the game, but Nepomniachtchi, who has won the Candidates Tournament twice, held firm with good defense and counterattacks and steered the endgame with knights and pawns to a draw. The game lasted 60 moves.

Grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa also stayed in the race after a draw against the Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. It was another Italian opening game for the Indian with black, who had no chance against a solid Vachier-Lagrave.

The pieces were exchanged at regular intervals and the players reached a rook and pawn endgame that offered no chance.

After a single decisive game in the opening round, in which Frenchman Alireza Firouzja defeated American Fabiano Caruana, the second round ended in a draw.

Firouzja drew with Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan and Dutchman Anish Giri made peace with Ding Liren.

In the other game of the tournament with prize money of 350,000 dollars, the all-American duel between Wesley So and Caruana also ended in a draw.

Firouzja remained in the lead with 1.5 points in his pocket, leaving eight players behind with one point each.

With half a point to his name, Caruana is currently bottom of the table with seven rounds of the ten-player round-robin tournament still to be played.

Round 2 results: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 1) drew against R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 1); Anish Giri (Ned, 1) drew against Ding Liren (Chn, 1); Wesley So (Usa, 1) drew against Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 0.5); D Gukesh (Ind, 1) drew against Ian Nepomniachtchi (FID, 1); Alireza Firouzja (Fra, 1.5) drew against Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb, 1).