Nepomniachtchi makes move

Ian Nepomniachtchi has maintained the lead at the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg, Russia after an 11-round draw with American Fabiano Caruana.

With three rounds remaining, the 30-year-old Russian champion has seven points or a slim half-point lead over Anish Giri of the Netherlands.

The 26-year-old Dutchman recorded his fourth win of the tournament by overcoming Chinese Ding Liren in 29 moves of a Spanish Opening and moved closer to the leader. At stake is the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the $2 million FIDE World Championship match slated in Dubai in November.

In other matches, Russian Alexander Grischuk beat Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Wang Hao (China) halved the point with local GM Kirill Alekseenko.

The standings after eleven rounds: Nepomniachtchi, 7.0; Giri, 6.5; Caruana, 6.0; Grischuk, 5.5; MVL, 5.5; Wang, 5.0;  Alekseenko, 4.5; and Ding 4.0.

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Meanwhile, the fifth leg of the $1.5 million Meltwater Champions Tour is underway with 16 top players competing.

Dubbed as the New In-Chess Classic, the $100,000 online event will as usual be conducted in a single-round robin preliminary and knockout matchups. The top eight finishers in the prelims will advance to the knockout phase made up of quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. Time control is 15 minutes plus 10 seconds increment.

Carlsen, who is seeking to win the title for the first time, will face Russian Sergey Karjakin in the opening round.

Other round one pairings will be Teimour Radjabov (AZE) vs Gawain Jones (ENG), Aryan Tari (NOR) vs Vidit Gujrathi (IND), Levon Aronian vs Leinier Dominguez (USA), John Christiansen (NOR) vs Le Quang Liem (VIE),  Hikaru Nakamura (USA) vs Shakriyar Mamedyarov (AZE),  Alireza Firouzja (FIDE) vs Wesley So (USA) and Jan-Krzysztof Duda (POL) vs Ramanesh Praggnanandhaa (IND).

All games can be followed live at various chess websites starting at 19:00 CEST (1 p.m. Eastern and 10 a.m. Pacific).