Alireza Firouzja showed some resilience in round 6, bouncing back from what was presumably a painful loss to Ju Wenjun in round 5 with a grinding win against Wei Yi. Wei Yi equalized with Black in a Queen’s Gambit Accepted (by transposition), but a couple of careless moves let Firouzja obtain a serious queenside initiative. White soon won a pawn, and further imprecisions by Wei Yi resulted in a straightforward win for White.
As a result of this game, Firouzja found himself again in clear second. He would have remained a full point behind Anish Giri, had Giri cashed in what was more than once a winning advantage against Parham Maghsoodloo. Alas for the defending champ, he let the win(s) slip and leads by just half a point.
There were two other winners on the day. Dommaraju Gukesh won his second straight game, this time defeating Jorden Van Foreest on the black side of the Scotch. The game was sharp but balanced until Gukesh’s error on move 20; fortunately for him, Van Foreest played 22.Qf2??, blundering a pawn and resulting in a lost position, rather than the simple 23.Qe3 keeping everything protected. Gukesh made a couple of errors later that could have made the win more difficult, but Van Foreest was unable to make anything of them and duly lost.
The third winner was Max Warmerdam, who won with White against Alexander Donchenko’s King’s Indian. Warmerdam was better most of the way, but Donchenko had a number of subtle tactical opportunities to make a mess of things. He still had chances as late as his 27th move, but 27…Re7?(??) blundered a couple of pawns and left him lost. Once the players reached the time control, there was nothing left to hope for, and a couple of forcing moves elicited Black’s resignation on move 42.
The remaining games were drawn. Ju Wenjun vs. Vidit Gujrathi seemed headed for a draw early on, though at the (early) end Ju may have had a slight advantage had she rejected the repetition and played 27.Qa4 instead. Ian Nepomniachtchi had a significant advantage against Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, but a couple of imprecise moves and an ingenious piece sac by Pragg allowed the youngster to survive. Finally, Ding Liren vs. Nodirbek Abdusattorov was a very easy draw for Black.
The games, with my comments, are here; here are the pairings for round 7:
Vidit (3) - Firouzja (4)
Donchenko (1.5) - Ju Wenjun (2.5)
Gukesh (3.5) - Warmerdam (3.5)
Praggnanandhaa (3.5) - Van Foreest (2)
Maghsoodloo (1.5) - Nepomniachtchi (3)
Abdusattorov (3.5) - Giri (4.5)
Wei Yi (3) - Ding Liren (3)