Chinese no. 1 Ding Liren exploited some reckless decisions by Ian Nepomniachtchi to join the World Champion in the Magnus Carlsen Invitational lead. Hikaru Nakamura also joined the leaders, but he did it only after losing a hard-fought all-US battle against Fabiano Caruana in Armageddon. Fabi is just one point behind the leaders and likely to join them in the knockout stages, since there’s a 5-point gap to MVL and Nepo with just 2 rounds to go. The Top 4 play for the $70,000 top prize.
That meant Ding Liren was the one player to take the full 3 match points for a win in rapid chess, while Caruana and Nakamura split the points 2:1 after Armageddon:
