Cuban Dominguez tied in second place at Tata Steel Chess Tournament

HAVANA, Cuba, January 24 (ACN).— Cuban Leinier Domínguez drew with Israeli Boris Gelfand thus remaining in a privileged position in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, which is led by Armenian Levon Aronian after nine rounds.

Leinier took black pieces and opted for the Grunfeld defense. The match ended after 37 moves.

With this outcome, the Cuban GM won 5.5 ponts and now appears tied in positions two through five with local favorite Anish Giri, Italian Fabiano Caruana and Russian Sergey Karjakin, who was defeated by Aronian.

After this win in 61 moves, including a Queen's Gambit, Aronian, who now has 7 points, is the virtual champion of the event with only two rounds left.

Giri and Caruana both drew against Hungarian Richard Rapport and American Hikaru Nakamura, in that order.

Thursday’s matches were completed with the victories of Filipino Wesley So over local Loek van Wely, and the Indian Pentala Harikrishna at the expense of German Arkadi Naiditsch.

These two winners total five units, one more than Van Wely, while Rapport and Nakamura appear with 3.5, Gelfand has 2.5 and Naiditsch is last with 1.5.

On Saturday Leinier will face Aronian with white pieces, against whom he has managed one win, two draws and one defeat in classic games.