Sinquefield Cup, Round 1

Firouzja leads, Caruana in last, everyone else tied for second.

(Or you might say they’re tied for next-to-last.) Day 1 of the Sinquefield Cup, the final event of this year’s Grand Chess Tour, finished with four draws out of five games, but only one game was approximately level from start to finish. That was the game between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and it wasn’t that Nepo lacked ambition. He tried something off the beaten path, but it turned out that MVL was well-prepared even for Nepo’s very old-fashioned opening.

The other draws all had moments, however brief, when one side enjoyed a fairly serious edge. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu enjoyed a serious advantage on the white side of a 5.Nc3 Petroff. He had a dangerous kingside attack brewing, but his overly cautious 16.a3 followed by the accommodating 17.h5 let almost all the advantage slip.

The most intriguing matchup of the day was a World Championship preview. Champion Ding Liren had White against his challenger this coming November, Gukesh Dommaraju. The players went a bit off the beaten path in a Giuoco Piano, reaching a pawn structure more characteristic of the Open Ruy. Gukesh’s 18…d4 was too optimistic (at least objectively), and Ding could have achieved a long-lasting positional advantage. He missed his chance, however, and a few moves later forced a draw.

The last of the day’s draws was between Wesley So and Anish Giri. So’s opening play left something to be desired, and despite having the white pieces he was clearly worse after 15 moves. Fortunately for So, Giri’s 16th move, though natural, was a mistake, and after 17.Nb5 Giri had nothing better than to liquidate into a endgame. The players quickly took it as drawn, and while the Sofia (no draw offers) rules forced the game to drag on through 41 moves it was essentially over after move 25.

There was one decisive result, with Alireza Firouzja defeating Fabiano Caruana with the black pieces. As if to make up for the shortcomings of the other four games it had a bit of everything. First, there was deep theoretical preparation by both players involving a pawn sac by Caruana in the opening, an attack and then long-lasting positional pressure by White. Firouzja defended well and outplayed Caruana, achieving a winning advantage. Caruana defended resourcefully, and it bore fruit as Firouzja allowed Caruana the chance to save the game. Unfortunately for Caruana, he missed his chance, and Firouzja finally ground out the full point after 85 moves.

Update: All five games are now annotated - have a look here.