CHENNAI: Swedish Grandmaster Nils Grandelius continued to be in sole lead after the conclusion of 6 rounds at the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee on Friday evening.
Grandelius drew with the defending champion Fabiano Caruana. Only two players Jorden van Foreest and Alireza Firouzja won their respective clashes in the sixth round to move into the second spot. While Jorden defeated David Anton in a complex Ruy Lopez game, young gun Alireza saw off the challenge from Alexander Donchenko.
Alireza felt Donchenko fought hard to stay in the hunt. “The game was always very complicated and we were both in time trouble and he made the final mistake,” Alireza said after the match.
While Grandelius has 4 points, Van Foreest, Magnus Carlsen, P Harikrishna, Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri and Alireza are in the second spot with 3.5 points each.
Carlsen had his chances of scoring a full point for a brief while but his clash against Jan-Krzysztof Duda finished in a draw. Harikrishna too enjoyed an upper hand against Radoslaw Wojtaszek before agreeing on a draw in 43 moves. Anish Giri drew with Andrey Esipenko after 42 moves.
Aryan Tari, who played the Grünfeld defence with black pieces against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, had his moments and possessed a favourable position as well but was not able to capitalise on it as the contest ended in a draw on move 26.
