Aronian in sole lead, Gukesh falters; time running out for Indian

St. Louis: World champion D Gukesh scored one win and four draws to slip to joint sixth spot in the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz chess tournament, a part of the Grand chess tour.

Gukesh needs to score massively in the second half as only nine blitz games are left for him to stage a comeback.

Levon Aronian of the United States took the sole lead scoring 6/9 and is sitting pretty in the event ahead of overnight leader and compatriot Fabiano Caruana.

While Aronian has a total of 19 points, Caruana is two points behind him and only a half point ahead of third placed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France.

Uzbek Grandmaster Nodirbek Abdusattorov made a comeback of sorts, matching Aronian on points in the blitz and jumped to joint fourth place along side Wesley So of United States with both having 15 points each.

Gukesh is a distant sixth on 13 point with Liem Le Quang of Vietnam and these two are three points clear of another American Leinier Dominguez Perez. Grigoriy Oparin improved his position a bit and moved to ninth spot on 9 points, 1.5 ahead of Sam Shankland.

For Gukesh the victory came over Dominguez but the four losses in all cost him dearly. Caruana lost three and went winless in blitz after a dazzling show in the rapid section while Aronian lost one won four and

drew four enroute to regaining the lead.