After a dream run, R. Praggnanandhaa had an off-day in opposition to Vietnam’s Liem Le Quang, and misplaced 0.5-2.5 to slide the second spot behind Magnus Carlsen after the fifth spherical of the $210,000 FTX Crypto Cup speedy chess match in Miami on Friday.
After the primary sport led to a draw, Praggananandhaa faltered in equal positions within the subsequent two video games for his first loss within the eight-player match and remained on 12 factors.
Like Praggnanandhaa, Carlsen additionally suffered his first defeat however misplaced 4 instances in six encounters in opposition to Poland’s Jan-Krzysztof Duda. In contrast to the Indian, Carlsen gained some extent since his loss got here after the speedy video games. Actually, Carlsen did properly to power the blitz tiebreak video games after shedding the primary two speedy encounters. Although the Norwegian bounced again to win twice in succession and make it 2-2, Duda was lucky to flee to victory within the blitz video games.
Alireza Firouzja (France) moved inside some extent of Praggnanandha by beating Hans Niemann (USA) 2.5-0.5 and Anish Giri (Netherlands) was fourth after scoring an identical victory over Levon Aronian (USA).
The road-up of the sixth and penultimate spherical is: Praggnanandha-Duda; Firouzja-Carlsen; Anish-Liem; Niemann-Aronian.
