The Italian Game, Classical Variation. Caruana keeping things very principled here.
An interesting, aggressive expansion on the queenside for Caruana. But Pragg has the slightly better pawn grip on the center, so the position is tricky but around equal.
A few ideas at play here for Pragg, one of which involves challenging Caruana's strongest piece, his dark-squared bishop.
Trying to punch home an advantage on the center, where Pragg's structure allows him to fight better than in other parts of the board.
Pragg may well be calculating the consequences of taking this pawn on the left hand side. Though it seems too risky to take twice, because of the x-ray along that diagonal.
Did Pragg simply overlook this tactic? Ouch! Caruana is now a little better, as he's traded off his edge pawn for a strong central one!
I think Caruana will take with the bishop here, gaining time against the queen. And he'll be left with 'the bishop pair', good for a significant edge.
Pragg had to step his queen away from the attack of Caruana's bishop.
Trading pawns makes a lot of sense, opening up lines for his pieces.
Looking to bring the knight to life next move via one of the newly available squares.
Caruana might be making space for his rook to occupy that square, from where it would target Pragg's somewhat shaky knight.
A good move! Stepping off the diagonal and the vision of the dark-squared bishop is helpful.
All of a sudden, the position is getting very messy here with chances for both sides. Pragg has been outplaying Caruana in the past handful of moves!
Caruana with a big mistake here. He's inviting Pragg's knight up the board, from where it's going to play a deadly role against Caruana's king.
Pragg does the right thing, going forward with his knight. A more timid move would have cost him any hope of an edge, while now he's got excellent winning chances!
Setting up nasty tactical ideas based on a check after rook takes bishop.
A strong option, and the position is completely winning! Though Pragg overlooked an even stronger path, which would have killed the game on the spot. Let's see if Caruana can hang in here...
Lights out! Caruana's entire position collapses here.
Resign time for Caruana, as it's forced mate on the board. Caruana has no other move here than to block the check with his queen, when at that point Pragg would play rook takes pawn check, only to take the queen with mate on the move after that.
An impressive start for Pragg, who was actually in a little bit of trouble but then bounced back by outplaying Caruana in a tactically messy middlegame.
The play-offs begin!
It's a 3-way tie for first place after 9 rounds in St.Louis. Which means that we're about to kick off with Pragg, Wesley and Fabiano duking it out.
Blitz format, and it's:
Game 1: Pragg - Caruana
Game 2: Wesley - Pragg
Game 3: Caruana - So
And if all three games were to be drawn, then Wesley So would sit out and wait on the 1st armaggedon game to be decided, as he is the 'top seed' for this play-off.
5 minutes per player, 2 seconds increment per move.
Let's see who comes out on top!