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Wesley So remains alone at the top of the Sinquefield Cup standings after Friday's fifth round, which produced two decisive games and three draws. The tournament leader shared the point with Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, while Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Keymer scored the day's victories against Levon Aronian and Anish Giri, respectively.
So entered Saturday's rest day with 3½/5 points. Four players are grouped half a point behind him on 3/5: Caruana, Keymer, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Praggnanandhaa. Giri, on 1½/5, is ninth, while Jorden van Foreest remains alone at the bottom on 1/5.
The standings could easily have looked different, as Vachier-Lagrave obtained a winning position with black against Van Foreest. Had the Frenchman converted, he would have caught So in first place. Instead, Van Foreest escaped with a draw and avoided what would have been his fourth defeat of the tournament.
Round 5 results
Wesley So entered the second half of the event as sole leader | Photo: Crystal Fuller
Caruana's victory came two rounds after his loss to So had knocked him out of the lead. Against Aronian, he obtained a favourable position surprisingly early in a Petroff Defence after his opponent confused his preparation. By move 21, Aronian was already in serious trouble despite having used little more than a minute of his clock.
Aronian later received an opportunity to complicate matters and improve his defensive prospects, but failed to take advantage of it.
Caruana did not offer another significant chance thereafter and converted his advantage to return to the group immediately behind the leader. The result gave Caruana his second victory of the tournament. Previously, he had defeated Van Foreest in round one and lost against So in round three - all three of his decisive games came when he had the white pieces.
Fabiano Caruana | Photo: Crystal Fuller
Keymer also reached 3/5 - by defeating Giri with the white pieces. The German number one obtained the initiative from an English Opening and gradually increased the pressure after weaknesses appeared around Black's king. His pieces became increasingly dominant, while advanced pawns further restricted Giri's position.
Giri initially lost a pawn and later had to give up a piece for another pawn as his position deteriorated. Keymer's conversion was not entirely straightforward, however: he was short of time towards the end and had to negotiate the final phase largely on increments.
Keymer has now recovered from his painful second-round defeat against Aronian, when he let a winning position slip before eventually losing after 91 moves. He followed that setback by beating Praggnanandhaa, drawing MVL and defeating Giri on Friday.
Annotations by Martina Gerdts
Fully focused - Vincent Keymer versus Anish Giri | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Vachier-Lagrave had the clearest missed opportunity of the round. Playing black against Van Foreest in a Sicilian Defence, he outplayed the Dutchman and reached an endgame in which he was a pawn ahead and had several ways to maintain a winning advantage.
With a number of attractive continuations available, however, MVL failed to choose the most accurate path. Further opportunities arose, but he again missed the strongest continuations.
Here MVL played the natural-looking 35...Kf5?!, which, in fact, gives up part of his advantage. With 39 minutes on the clock for just 6 moves, the Frenchman - who is an excellent calculator - could have surely figured out that 35...g5! is much stronger. After 36.Rxh6+ Kf5 37.Kc2 (still defending c3) g4 38.Nh4+ Kg5 39.Rh8 (diagram), Black has 39...Rd7!, threatening to infiltrate via d2 with decisive effect.
Instead, after the text move, Van Foreest managed to pose enough practical obstacles to his opponent until escaping with a half point.
The missed point was particularly significant in the standings. A victory would have allowed Vachier-Lagrave to join So in the lead. Van Foreest, meanwhile, collected his second draw after beginning the tournament with three defeats in his first four games.
Following a difficult start to the tournament, Jorden van Foreest escaped with a draw against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | Photo: Lennart Ootes
So's game against Praggnanandhaa was an extremely quick "GM draw". With qualification for the Grand Chess Tour Finals an important consideration, the half-point allowed So to preserve his outright lead heading into the rest day. Sindarov, meanwhile, was unable to obtain anything substantial from the opening against Sevian, and their game also ended peacefully.
Play resumes on Sunday with round six. The key pairing at the top will see Vachier-Lagrave face So with the white pieces, a particularly important encounter for the Frenchman's hopes of winning the tournament and reaching the GCT Finals.
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