So he maintains the lead, with four players more than half a point ahead
Wesley Soo remains alone at the top of the Sinquefield Cup standings after the fifth round on Friday, which witnessed two decisive matches and three draws. The tournament leaders shared the point with Pragnananda Rambabu, while Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Kemmer scored the day’s victories against Levon Aronian and Anish Giri respectively.
Thus, he entered the rest day on Saturday with 3½/5 points. Four players were grouped half a point behind him at 3/5: Caruana, Kemer, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Prajanananda. Jerry, at 1½/5, is ninth, while Jordan Van Forest remains alone at the bottom at 1/5.
The standings could easily have looked different, with Vacher-Lagrave earning the winning position in black against Van Vorst. If the Frenchman had converted, he would have gotten Sue in the first place. Instead, Van Vorst escaped with the equalizer and avoided what would have been his fourth defeat of the tournament.
Results of the fifth round
Picture this: you’ve outmaneuvered your opponent step after step, and are clearly better – and then the endgame slips into a tie, simply because you lack crucial theoretical knowledge. This is exactly where this course comes in. Without strong end-game skills, there is no way to move forward. Rook endgames are even more important: they occur more often than any other type of endgame, and often make the difference between victory and half a point. If you master it, you will confidently turn your advantages into victories!
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Wesley therefore entered the second half of the event as sole leader Photo: Crystal Fuller
Caruana’s victory came two rounds after his loss to Su, which knocked him out of the lead. Against Aronian, he got into a surprisingly favorable position early on in Petrov’s defense after his opponent confounded his preparation. By move 21, Aronian was already in serious trouble even though he had only used a little more than a minute of his watch.
Aronian later had a chance to complicate matters and improve his defensive prospects, but failed to take advantage.
Caruana did not present another great chance after that and converted his advantage to return to the group just behind the leaders. The result gave Caruana his second win of the tournament. Previously, he had defeated Van Forrest in the first round and lost to Su in the third round – all three of his deciding matches came when he was dealt the white pieces.
Fabiano Caruana | Photo: Crystal Fuller
Kemer also reached 3/5 by defeating Jerry with the white pieces. The first German took the initiative from the English opener and gradually increased the pressure as weaknesses emerged around the King of Black. His pieces became increasingly dominant, while the advancing pawns further restricted Gerry’s position.
Jerry initially lost a pawn and later had to give up a piece in exchange for another pawn as his situation deteriorated. However, Kemmer’s turnaround was not entirely clear: he did not have enough time near the end and had to negotiate the final stage largely on inclines.
Kemer has now recovered from his painful second round defeat to Aronian, when he lost his winning position before eventually losing after 91 moves. He followed that setback with a win over Pragnananda, a MVL draw and a defeat for Jerry on Friday.
Kemer 1-0 Jiri
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Fully Focused – Vincent Kemmer vs Anish Giri | Photo: Lennart Oates
Vachier-Lagrave had the clearest missed opportunity of the round. Playing in black against Van Vorst in the Sicilian defence, he beat the Dutchman and reached the end of the game where he was a pawn in front of him and had several ways to maintain the winning advantage.
With a number of attractive continuations available, MVL failed to choose the most accurate path. Other chances arose, but he again missed the strongest continuation.
Here MVL played the natural look 35…KV5?!In fact, he is giving up part of his interest. With 39 minutes on the clock for just 6 moves, the Frenchman – an excellent calculator – could certainly have come up with 35…g5! Much stronger. After 36.Rxh6+ Kf5 37.Kc2 (still defending c3) g4 38.Nh4+ Kg5 39.Rh8 (striped), Black has 39…Rd7!, and threatens to sneak through d2 with decisive effect.
Instead, after moving the script, Van Forest managed to put enough practical obstacles in front of his opponent that he escaped with half a point.
The missed point was particularly important in the standings. A win would have allowed Vachier-Lagrave to join So in the lead. Meanwhile, Van Vorst collected his second draw after starting the tournament with three defeats in his first four matches.
After a difficult start to the tournament, Jordan van Vorst escaped with a draw against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | Photo: Lennart Oates
So a match against Praggnanandhaa was a very quick ‘GM draw’. With qualification for the Grand Chess Tour Finals an important consideration, the half point allowed him to maintain his full lead heading into the rest day. Meanwhile, Sindarov was unable to get anything of substance from the opening match against Cevyan, and the match also ended peacefully.
Play will resume on Sunday in the sixth round. The main duo at the top will see Vachere-Lagrave face off with the white pieces, a particularly important encounter for the Frenchman’s hopes of winning the tournament and reaching the GCT finals.
Ranking after the fifth round
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