India's Grandmasters D Gukesh and R Praggnanadhaa played out their eighth draw in as many games at the Sinquefield Cup. Gukesh took 23 moves against Holland’s Anish Giri and Praggnanadhaa drew in 28 moves with local favourite Fabiano Caruana.
With all the games ending in draws in the eighth round as well, Alireza Firouzja of France who won the Grand Chess Tour has now only one round to spare in this cup and became entitled to a USD 100,000 bonus throughout.
Alireza took his tally to an unmatchable 5.5 points out of eight games and Caruana is the only player who can catch him on the points table provided Alireza loses his final bout against Praggnanandhaa and the American himself beats Giri.
In the eighth round, Firouzja played out the longest game which also ended peacefully after 80 moves against Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi.
In the two other games of the day in the ten-player double round-robin tournament, Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan split the point with Ding Liren of China and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France drew with Wesley So of the United States.
Even if he loses, Alireza will win the tour for the first time thanks to his superior points tally overall.
"It's very tough to win a tour. Any tour is tough to win, but this is the strongest tour in the world. Very happy, but it's very tiring and feeling exhausted but, I'm very happy", Alireza noted.
The third place is still shared by five players on four points apiece. They are Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Vachier-Lagrave, Wesly So and Abdusattorov.
Nepomniachtchi and Liren come in next on 3.5 points, a half-point clear of Anish Giri who is at the last spot.
Gukesh had to work quite less out of a routine Ruy Lopez as black as Giri went for a couple of pawn grabs in the early middle game to shake hands via repetition of moves.
Praggnanandhaa started with the English opening and faced one of Caruana’s pet variations. The result here was a draw also through repetition of moves.
Results round 8: Ian Nepomniachtchi (Fid, 3.5) drew with Alireza Firouzja (Fra, 5.5;) Ding Liren (Chn, 3.5) drew with Nodirbek Abdusattorov (USA, 4); R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 4) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA, 4.5); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 4) drew with Wesley So (USA, 4); Anish Giri (Ned, 3) drew with D Gukesh (Ind, 4).
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