Carlsen retains the lead of the Opera Euro Rapid preliminaries after day 2 - Day 2

Magnus Carlsen conceded he was somewhat fortunate on day two of the Open Euro Rapid. Carlsen started the day with a quiet draw against Jan-Krzysztof Duda, was under pressure for much of the game against Alexander Grischuk, allowed an early forced draw against Anish Giri, survived a poor opening against Ian Nepomniachtchi where if his opponent had "taken a bit of care" instead of playing "too quickly" the full point should have been his, in the final game there was a tremendous fight with Hikaru Nakamura which ended rather suddenly with Nakamura playing what he thought was the decisive 32... Re1 but instead it was he who had to resign after 33. Bxg6. The point of this stage is to qualify for the knockout, and Carlsen has pretty much assured passage with five more rounds to go tomorrow.

Just behind Carlsen are Anish Giri and Wesley So. Giri scored +2 - his 3.5/5 was the best score on the day and Wesley So +1 (he lost just one game to Leinier Dominguez). Ian Nepomniachtchi is on 6 points and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Teimour Radjabov (still undefeated) and Levon Aronian are on 5.5 points.

Final day of the preliminary section is on Monday starting at 4pm GMT. It looks like the eight players placed 5th to 12th are likely to be in a major fight for just four qualification places.

Round 10 Standings: 1st Carlsen 7pts; 2nd-3rd Wesley So, Giri, 6.5pts; 4th Nepomniachtchi 6pts; 5th-7th Aronian, MVL, Radjabov 5.5pts; 8th-10th Nakamura, Duda, Grischuk 5pts; 11th-12th Vidit, Dubov 4.5pts; 13th Shankland 4pts; 14th Bluebaum 3.5pts; 15th-16th Ding Liren, Dominguez Perez 3pts