GM Narayanan Sunilduth Lyna is the first sole leader of the 2023 Qatar Masters after beating world number-eight Gukesh Dommaraju to move to 4.5/5. No less than 12 players are half a point back, including GM Hikaru Nakamura, and IM Vaishali R, who beat a strong grandmaster to post a stunning 2773 rating performance so far. GM Magnus Carlsen won a third game with the white pieces, while GM Anish Giri paid a high price for a single mistake against IM Rudik Makarian. 

Round six, after a rest day, starts on October 17 at 8:15 a.m. ET/14:15 CEST/5:45 p.m. IST.

Qatar continues to be a tough place for favorites, with the world numbers seven and eight—Giri and Gukesh—the latest to stumble. For Giri it was all down to one move, 34…Qa7?, which suddenly allowed 35.d5! to break open the black position. 19-year-old IM Makarian was merciless in what followed.

Gukesh’s downfall, meanwhile, was critical to the tournament standings. We were heading for a 14-way tie for first place until 107-point-lower-rated fellow Indian Narayanan won a fine game to take the sole lead. He had the white pieces, and soon took control. 

Narayanan has Gukesh on the ropes! https://t.co/MKEKZ0KfHq #QatarMasters2023 pic.twitter.com/AZQy4IoDTR

— chess24.com (@chess24com) October 15, 2023

Gukesh would later pounce on a chance to fight back and was tantalizingly close to a draw, but in a queen endgame he couldn’t find the narrow path to hold and lost in 58 moves.

Not all the favorites struggled. Top seed Carlsen kept his hopes alive with a third win in a row with the white pieces, this time taking down 15-year-old Indian GM Bharath Subramaniyam. Carlsen felt his opponent’s decision to put knights on the rim on h5 and a5 made it “very hard to imagine that Black is ok.”

Carlsen did, however, confess to one shaky moment in what should have been a smooth win.

Magnus still rusty? 30.Rxg7+! was crushing here, but, with 50 minutes extra on the clock, the world no. 1 went for 30.Qd5, when 30…Qd3! would at least have prolonged the game, though it would be very unlikely to alter the outcome of the game#QatarMasters2023 pic.twitter.com/YggaLEMhmj

— chess24.com (@chess24com) October 15, 2023

Carlsen commented:

I’d missed this idea he had of 29…Re1 from afar, and honestly I was not so sure if I was winning anymore, because he could, I think, have forced an endgame where I’m two pawns up, but it’s not that easy for me to win. Fortunately for me he had very little time and he went for a direct try for a perpetual, which didn’t work.

After 30.Qd5?! Bharath could indeed have played 30…Qd3!, threatening checkmate and forcing an exchange of queens. What’s more surprising is that Carlsen, with 50 minutes to spare, didn’t calculate that 30.Rxg7+! was winning, with the queen and bishop just too powerful against the bare black king.

That game was again analyzed by Nakamura in his recap.

Nakamura also, of course, covered his own game against 17-year-old Uzbek GM Javokhir Sindarov, but that quiet draw was perhaps of most interest for following a 1959 game between the legendary GMs Mikhail Tal and Bent Larsen.

Back then Tal’s b-pawn was able to break free, storm up the board, and win the game singlehandedly, but Nakamura was aware of that precedent and shut things down for a 30-move draw that leaves him in the big group on four points, just half a point behind the leader.

The most noteable player in that group, and hence half a point ahead of Carlsen, is 22-year-old Vaishali, who in the last couple of years has truly emerged from the shadow of her brother GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. Her performance in Qatar has been a stunning 2773, and she’s currently smashing the requirements for a grandmaster norm.

Her round-five opponent GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov had made draws in the previous two rounds against Giri and Nakamura, but he met his match in Vaishali. That encounter is our Game of the Day, analyzed by GM Dejan Bojkov.

There’s one more game we can’t skip before ending this recap, since it featured the combination of the day. Another Uzbek GM, Nodirbek Yakubboev, found it in order to beat “the beast” GM Adhiban Baskaran in his own style.

The players now have a rest day on Monday, before the final four rounds of the event. Narayanan will have to defend his lead against the formidable 2021 world rapid champion GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, while Carlsen again faces a teenage Indian star, this time IM Samant Aditya S.

The standings look as follows with four rounds to go.

Qatar Masters | Standings After Round 5 (Top 33)

Full standings

Qatar Masters | All Games Round 5

The 2023 Qatar Masters is a nine-round open tournament for players rated 2300+. It takes place in Lusail, Qatar on October 11-20, and boasts a $108,250 prize fund with $25,000 for first place, as well as a $5,000 prize for the top female player.

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