BUCHAREST: Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa was held to a draw by Romanian Deac Bogdan-Daniel while France's Alireza Firouzja decided to finally call it quits in the sixth round of the Super Chess Classic, part of the Grand Chess Tour.
Alireza, who played two games despite an ankle injury, decided it was not possible for him to continue and withdrew on the rest day of the ten-players nine-rounds tournament. Germany's Vincent Keymer was the one to benefit from Firouzja's withdrawal as he stretched his lead to a full point after getting a walk over in this round.
While all the other games ended in draws, Keymer remained as the sole leader on 4.5 points, a full point clear of Holland's Jorden Van Foreest and Anish Giri, top seeded American Fabiano Caruana and Praggnanandhaa who all have 3.5 point each.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France and Wesley share the sixth spot on three points apiece while World Championship challenger Javokhir SIndarov of Uzbekistan is close behind on 2.5 points. Romanian Deac Bogdan-Daniel is in ninth spot with two points and Firouzja ended his campaign on one point from five games.
Deac Bogdan-Daniel might be the lowest ranked but the Romanian has time and again proved why he is the local pick for the main event as a wild card.
Praggnanandhaa went for complications right from the opening by going for the Stonewall Dutch but Deac did not flinch and matched the Indian move-for-move. The pieces got traded at regular intervals and even though Praggnanandhaa picked a temporary pawn, the draw was a foregone conclusion. It was over in 68 moves.
Sindarov was at the top of his game just a little over a month back when he won the Candidates to earn the right to challenge Gukesh for the next world championship match. However, here the Uzbek is yet to win a game after six rounds as he played his fifth draw with Caruana.
It was an Italian opening in which Caruana had a semblance of an advantage but the American tried not to go far ahead and the position was almost level in the middle game when the players repeated moves.
In the other game of the day, Foreest drew with compatriot Giri.
There are three more rounds still remaining in the event that has a total prize pool of 375000 USD with a 100000 USD reserved for the winner.
Results round 6: Deac Bogdan-Daniel (Rou, 2) drew with R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 3.5); Vincent Keymer (Ger, 4.5) walk-over Alireza Firouzja (Fra, 1); Caruana Fabiano (Usa, 3.5) drew with Javokhir SIndarov (Uzb, 2.5); Jorden Van Foreest (Ned, 3.5) drew with Anish Giri (Ned, 3.5).