Praggnanandhaa draws with Aronian; remains joint 2nd with 3.5 pts

St. Louis (USA): India's R Praggnanandhaa played out another draw with GM Levon Aronian of United States in the sixth round of the Sinquefield cup, part of the Grand Chess tour.

The Indian GM remained in joint second spot with 3.5 points with just three rounds remaining.

Wesley So of United States remained in sole lead on four points that saw just one decisive game out of a possible five in the USD 475,000 prize money tournament. For the record, Wesley drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France.


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GM Praggnanandhaa, along with Vachier-Lagrave and German Vincent Keymer shares the second spot while the American trio of top seed Fabiano Caruana, Sevian Samuels and Aronian are sharing the fifth spot on three points each.

Anish Giri of Holland is next in queue with World Championship contender Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan while Dutchman Jorden van Foreest is in last spot with just a sole point in his bag.

Praggnanandhaa tried his best to complicate matters against Aronian but the former Armenian was quite up to the task in defending a tricky middle game. The Indian at a point lost two pawns in the middle but made a .

Anish Giri was the lone winner of the day at the expense of Foreest. The former launched a decisive middle game attack on the black king and succeeded when his compatriot collapsed one more time.

Results round 6: Anish Giri (Ned, 2.5) beat Jorden Van Foreest (Ned, 1); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 3.5) drew with Wesley So (Usa, 4); Sevian Samuels (Usa, 3) drew with Vincent Keymer (Ger, 3.5); R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 3.5) drew with Levon Aronian (Usa, 3); Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb, 2.5) drew with Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 3).