Praggnanandhaa draws with Sevian in Sinquefield Cup opener

Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa played out an easy draw with American counterpart Samuel Sevian in the first round of the Sinquefield Cup, the penultimate event of the Grand Chess Tour, which got under way here.

The event this year saw top seed Fabiano Caruana emerge as early leader in the 10-player, nine-round event, as he beat Jorden Van Foreest of the Netherlands to open his account with a win, while the remaining games ended in draws.

World championship contender Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan split the point with Armenian-turned-American Levon Aronian, while Vincent Keymer of Germany could not get past Wesley So of the United States. Anish Giri of the Netherlands also drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France.

For Praggnanandhaa, it was a decent start, as he gave nothing away with the black pieces against Sevian. The Arkhangelsk Variation in the Ruy Lopez led to an easy game for the Indian, with Sevian too in no mood to complicate matters, and the Indian's preparation also proved better.

By the 11th move itself, a pair of rooks had changed hands, and the exchanges continued until the players reached a queen-and-minor-piece endgame. With both having two knights each, the result was a foregone conclusion, and once the queens were also traded, it was just a matter of time before a draw was reached. The game lasted 48 moves, though it could have been settled earlier.

Caruana proved once again why he has been the best player on the tour thus far, as he outplayed Van Foreest from an equal position. The Dutchman blundered a pawn, overlooking a tactic in the middlegame, and Caruana's technique was flawless in converting the advantage into a full point after 55 moves.

In the USD 4,75,000 prize-money tournament, Sindarov gave nothing away with white against Aronian, opting for an irregular queen's pawn set-up. Aronian lost a pawn, raising hopes for the Uzbek, but the resulting bishops-of-opposite-colours endgame was a theoretical draw.

Keymer had a similar story against Wesley So, with his attempts to attack the black king thwarted fairly easily, while Anish Giri could make no headway against Vachier-Lagrave and had to settle for a draw in a rook-and-pawns endgame fought down to the wire.