R Praggnanandhaa moved into the lead with a win over Arjun Erigaisi, and world champion Dommaraju Gukesh played out a draw with top seed Fabiano Caruana in the third round of Tata Steel Chess Masters in Wijk Aan Zee on Monday.
Praggnanandhaa, with the white pieces against Erigaisi, took control of the match from the opening, and condemned his countryman to his second loss in three matches. He has moved to 2.5 points, sharing the lead currently with Uzbekistan's Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who scored an excellent win with the black pieces against the Dutchman Max Warmerdam.
Gukesh has now moved to two points out of a possible three in the first major tournament of the year. Playing white, it was a rare game by Gukesh as he decided against taking any risks. The Queen pawn opening was met by the Ragozine defense and Caruana acted true to the will of the position to expand his king side pawns.
On another day, Gukesh would have gone all out but here the Indian decided pretty soon that fighting for an advantage was probably not on cards. This was the first game to end in the Masters' section and it lasted just 24 moves as the draw was agreed to vide repetition of moves. Gukesh and Caruana are both on two points after the result, half a point behind the leaders Praggnanandhaa and Abdusattorov.
In other matches in the masters section, Anish Giri drew against Vladimir Fedoseev while defending champion Wei Yi also shared points with Vincent Keymer.
Round 3 Results:
R Praggnanandhaa 1-0 Arjun Erigaisi
Max Warmerdam 0-1 Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Jordan van Foreest 0.5-0.5 Alexey Sarana
Anish Giri 0.5-0.5 Vladimir Fedoseev
Dommaraju Gukesh 0.5-0.5 Fabiano Caruana
Wei Yi 0.5-0.5 Vincent Keymer
Leon Luke Mendonca 0.5-0.5 Pentala Harikrishna
Standings after Round 3
R Praggnanandhaa 2.5
Nodirbek Abdusattorov 2.5
Dommaraju Gukesh 2
Fabiano Caruana 2
Vincent Keymer 2
Wei Yi 1.5
Vladimir Fedoseev 1.5
Alexey Sarana 1.5
Pentala Harikrishna 1.5
Max Warmerdam 1
Jordan van Foreest 1
Anish Giri 1
Leon Luke Mendonca 0.5
Arjun Erigaisi
With inputs from PTI