While Nijat Abasov is having the sort of difficult tournament just about everyone predicted, he is making a good account of himself. He has been hard to beat, making draws in his white games while fighting well (though ultimately succumbing) when playing Black. He’s a very good player who is overmatched by the great players around him, and that was the story today against Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. Pragg put him under pressure almost from the start, he defended heroically and often very precisely, but a couple of errors at the end of the time control spelled his demise.
Alireza Firouzja, by contrast, has been far from his best. In round 1 he missed a win against Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, in round 2 he rejected a draw against Ian Nepomniachtchi and then blundered a piece a move later to lose, and after a couple of stable draws blundered in time trouble against Hikaru Nakamura in round 5 to lose an equal (but not trivially drawn) ending. Today, he collapsed in the opening against Vidit Gujrathi, was lost after 14 moves, and while he kept the game going until the time control he was remained completely lost until the end.
Pragg is now at +1 and Vidit back to an equal score, but what about the leaders, Nepomniachtchi and Dommaraju Gukesh, both of whom entered the round with +2 scores? They both had White, against Fabiano Caruana and Nakamura, respectively, but got nothing and made draws once the time control was made on move 40. (More precisely, move 41 for the Nepo-Caruana game.) Nepo didn’t even try, whether out of respect for Caruana or needing a break after his narrow escape in the previous round against Pragg, or some combination of those two factors. Whatever the case, his choice of the Scotch Four Knights, and his not bringing anything new to the table, indicated that he wanted an absolutely risk-free position that was almost sure to finish in a draw, even at the cost of burning a white game against the top seed.
The Gukesh-Nakamura game was different in that Gukesh played a “real” opening, but even so it was clear by around move 21 or so that White would never win, barring a blunder, and that he’d have to neutralize Black’s very slight initiative to make the draw - which he did.
In all, it wasn’t a thrilling round but it was a good and eventful one, notwithstanding the Nepo-Caruana dud, and the fight for first is getting tighter - at least for everyone without a first or last name starting with the letter “A”. Here are today’s games, with my comments, and here are the pairings for round 7, which will close the first cycle of this double round robin:
Nakamura (3) - Nepomniachtchi (4)
Caruana (3.5) - Praggnanandhaa (3.5)
Abasov (1.5) - Vidit (3)
Firouzja (1.5) - Gukesh (4)