Gukesh draws with Wei Yi; Praggnanandhaa closes gap on top after win

World Champion D Gukesh maintained his half point lead with an easy draw against China's Wei Yi while R Praggnanandhaa outwitted top seed American Fabiano Caruana to come within striking distance of the leader after round 11 of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament here on Friday.

Playing the white side of an Italian game, Gukesh went for a relatively new plan by pushing his central pawn in the opening that just helped Wei Yi maintain parity after the trade of queens.

The Indian was up a pawn when the endgame surfaced but the position was level and the peace was signed in 30 moves.

The draw helped Gukesh jumped to 8 points out of a possible 11 in the first major tournament of the year.

Praggnanandhaa, meanwhile, stunned Caruana from the black pieces to move to 7.5 points.

It was a Queen's gambit declined by Praggnanandhaa and Caruana went for one of the complex variations to show his intent after getting some mediocre results in the tournament thus far.

Praggnanandhaa had seldom had trouble in fighting complicated positions with loads of tactical possibilities and Friday was no different as he went for an attack quickly against the white queen after the players had castled on opposite wings.

As it happened, Caruana's 32nd move was a huge blunder giving Praggnanadhaa another victory five moves later.

On a good day for other Indians too, P Harikrishna accounted for Alexey Sarana of Serbia while Leon Luke Mendonca put it across Vladimir Fedoseev of Slovenia.

Arjun Erigaisi, meanwhile, played out another draw with Jorden van Foreest of Holland.

Results round 11 Masters:  Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 4.5) drew with Arjun Erigaisi (Ind, 3.5); D Gukesh (Ind, 8) drew with Wei Yi (Chn, 6); Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 5.5) lost to R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 7.5); Vincent Keymer (Ger, 4) playing Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb, 7); Anish Giri (Ned, 6) beat Max Warmerdam (Ned, 3.5); Alexey Sarana (Srb, 5) lost to P Harikrishna (Ind, 5.5); Vladimir Fedoseev (Slo, 6) lost to Leon Luke Mendonca (Ind, 4).