St. Louis: Reigning world champion D Gukesh had a relatively unremarkable day at the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz, as he lost one game and drew two, placing him in the middle of the standings in the 10-player tournament, which is part of the Grand Chess Tour.
After a shock defeat at the hands of tailender Sam Shankland of United States in the fourth round, Gukesh followed it up with two draws -- against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France and Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan.
Meanwhile, the lead changed hands dramatically as highest ranked American in the fray, Fabiano Caruana conceded just a lone draw and defeated overnight leader – the Armenian-turned-American Levon Aronian in the last game of the day to take a two-points lead. Like Gukesh, Aronian was just able to draw two games and lost one.
With just three rounds to go in the rapid, Caruana, on 10 points out of a possible 12, seems poised to win
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