Paris Rapid, Day 2: Three Leaders

After two days of the Rapid portion of the Paris leg of the Grand Chess Tour, there are three leaders: Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Wesley So, each with 3.5/6 - or rather, with 7/12. (The rapid games count double, while the blitz games coming after the rapid finishes tomorrow will count in the usual 1-.5-0 way.)

So's sole win came on day 1. Caruana's came today, against Peter Svidler, but he was worse much of the way. The win only came into view when Svidler made big errors on moves 36 and 37. And Nepo won yesterday and then again today in round 5 in good style against Levon Aronian. That game him a clear lead, but it only lasted for a few minutes, as he lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a French (as he did in the last round of the first cycle of the 2020/1 Candidates, though in neither case was the opening to blame); for MVL, that made up for his losing the day's other decisive game, to Etienne Bacrot.

Here are today's four, count 'em, four decisive games (out of 15).

Standings after day 2, on conventional scoring:

1-3. Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, So 3.5 (out of 5)
4-8. Vachier-Lagrave, Aronian, Radjabov, Svidler, Bacrot 3
9. Firouzja 2.5
10. Rapport 2