Praggnanandhaa begins the Sinquefield Cup in sight of a Grand Chess Tour final

R. Praggnanandhaa arrives at the Sinquefield Cup in strong form, having won the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz to move up to second place in the overall Grand Chess Tour standings. Barring a poor result here, he is likely to feature in the tour finale later this year.

The Grand Chess Tour Finals are contested by the top four finishers on the tour. At present the American grandmaster Fabiano Caruana is ahead of Praggnanandhaa in those standings, which makes each remaining event consequential.

The field at the Sinquefield Cup is formidable. All nine regular tour players are back, making it one of the strongest tournaments of the year alongside the Norway Chess Classic, which Praggnanandhaa also won. Samuel Sevian is a surprise entry, coming in after the French grandmaster Alireza Firouzja withdrew from the tour.

Caruana starts as the favourite once again, since classical chess is his particular strength. His fellow Americans Wesley So and Levon Aronian are also among the contenders for a podium finish. Beyond them the field includes the World Championship contender Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan, Vincent Keymer of Germany, Anish Giri of the Netherlands, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, and Jorden van Foreest of the Netherlands, who on his day can beat anyone.

The tournament runs over nine rounds between ten players on a round-robin basis, with a total prize pool of 475,000 dollars.

One structural detail will shape Praggnanandhaa's week. He has five games with the Black pieces out of a possible nine, leaving only four with White. In classical chess the player with White moves first and generally holds a small advantage, so a schedule weighted towards Black means he will need to make his four White games count.

In the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz he won by a margin of 1.5 points over Sindarov. He turned 21 on Monday. In the first round of the Sinquefield Cup he plays Samuel Sevian.