World champion D Gukesh played out a draw with top seed Fabiano Caruana of the United States in the third round of Tata Steel Chess Tournament at the Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands) on Monday.
Gukesh has now moved to two points out of a possible three in the first major tournament of the year.
Playing white, it was a rare game by Gukesh as he decided against taking any risks. The Queen pawn opening was met by the Ragozine defense and Caruana acted true to the will of the position to expand his king side pawns.
On another day, Gukesh would have gone all out but here the Indian decided pretty soon that fighting for an advantage was probably not on cards.
This was the first game to end in the Masters' section and it lasted just 24 moves as the draw was agreed to vide repetition of moves.
Gukesh and Caruana are both on two points after the result and it remains to be seen who among the rest could overtake them.
India's R Praggnanadhaa was seen enjoying a better endgame against compatriot Arjun Erigaisi and if the former wins he will most likely be the sole leader in the super tournament.
In other matches in the masters section, Anish Giri drew against Vladimir Fedoseev while defending champion Wei Yi also shared points with Vincent Keymer.
With inputs from PTI