St. Louis Rapid & Blitz, Day 2

Three co-leaders as parity sets in.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was hot on day 1 of the St. Louis Rapid & Blitz, scoring 2.5/3 for 5 points and the solo lead. He cooled off a bit on day 2 - almost everyone did - and he drew all three games, allowing two players to catch him. One was Ian Nepomniachtchi, who drew two games but managed to exploit Leinier Dominguez’s endgame blunders in round 5. The one player who genuinely hot was Alireza Firouzja, who won his white games in rounds 4 and 6 against Hikaru Nakamura and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, respectively.

As for the rest of the action, there wasn’t any, if by “action” you mean decisive games…except for one: a rout by Fabiano Caruana, with the black pieces, against Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. But let’s be fair: there was plenty of fight in the round and lots of long games; it’s just that wins were hard to come by.

Here are the standings going into the final day of the rapid; remember, scoring is on a 2-1-0 system:

(1)-(3) Nepomniachtchi, Firouzja, Vachier-Lagrave 8

(4) Aronian 7

(5) Dominguez 6

(6)-(9) Caruana, Abdusattorov, So, Nakamura 5

(10) Praggnanandhaa 3

Here are the games, with my comments to those that finished with a winner.