St. Louis Rapid & Blitz: Firouzja, Nepo and MVL share the lead

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
8/14/2024 – The second day of rapid chess at the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament finished with three players tied atop the standings with 8/12 points. Alireza Firouzja and Ian Nepomniachtchi caught up with former leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave after each scoring a win and two draws on Tuesday. Levon Aronian stands in sole fourth place, 1 point behind the co-leaders. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Nepo, Firouzja and Caruana with plus scores

Three players finished day 2 of the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz with plus scores. Two of them are now sharing first place with former sole leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - i.e. Alireza Firouzja and Ian Nepomniachtchi - while defending champion Fabiano Caruana recovered from a tough first day of action and is now one of four players standing 3 points behind the co-leaders with a -1 score (5/8).

There was plenty of fighting chess on Tuesday, but only 4 out of 9 games ended decisively. Firouzja obtained 2 out of the 4 wins, while Nepomniachtchi and Caruana scored 1 win each.

One of the most entertaining games was seen in round 5, when Nodirbek Abdusattorov failed to make the most of an extra queen in his encounter with white against Caruana.

White has to deal both with the passers on the c and e-files and with a potential perpetual check. The one winning move here is 70.Qf2, since:

  • 70...c1Q fails to 71.Qf4+
  • 70...Kd1 fails to 71.Qc3 and after 71...Qh1+ the only winning move is 72.Kg3 (72.Kg5 is bad due to 72...Qc1+ with a crucial check)

Abdusattorov played 70.Qxc2+ instead, and after 70...Kxc2 71.Qxe2+ Kc3 72.Kg5 Caruana escaped with a draw by giving a perpetual check.

72...Qd8+ 73.Kf4 Qd4+ 74.Kg5 Qd8+, etcetera. And the contenders soon signed a draw.

Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana

Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Fabiano Caruana trying to deal with a position featuring three queens on the board | Photo: Lennart Ootes

After ending day 1 with a 50-percent score, Firouzja collected wins in both his games with white on Tuesday. In round 4, he got the better of Hikaru Nakamura, who faltered decisively in an ending with rooks and bishops of opposite colours.

This position would remain balanced after 33...bxa6 34.bxa6 Bb5 35.Ra1 Rd7, and there is no obvious way to break through for either side.

However, after Nakamura erred with 33...b6 White gets the upper hand by playing 34.Rc7 Bxb5 35.Rxa7 Ra3 36.Ra8+

After 36...Kf7 37.a7 the a-pawn will eventually win the day for White. Firouzja went on to show good technique until getting an important 54-move victory.

Three more rounds of rapid chess will be played on Wednesday, while the two final days of action will see the participants battling it out in a blitz double round-robin.

Hikaru Nakamura

Still trying to figure out the intricacies of the tricky endgame - Hikaru Nakamura | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Levon Aronian

Levon Aronian having a look at the tournament trophy | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Daily recap

By Kostya Kavutskiy

Standings after round 6 (win = 2 pts.; draw = 1 pt.)

All games

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Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.