Day 1 of the Rapid portion of this Grand Chess Tour event started today.
In the first round Peter Svidler won a very long game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on the white side of a very closed French, and Etienne Bacrot - who played three decisive games out of three - defeated Richard Rapport's eccentric hybrid of a Caro-Kann and the North Sea Defense.
In round 2 Rapport lost again, again with Black, but this time playing a conventional opening. Wesley So won a nice game against him on the white side of a Nimzo-Indian, finishing with some nice tactics. Bacrot switched colors and results, losing with Black to Ian Nepomniachtchi's very direct kingside attack. Finally, MVL also switched colors and results, defeating Teimour Radjabov on the white side of a 4.d3 Berlin, breaking the latter's 750-game drawing streak. (Possibly a slight exaggeration.)
Radjabov was so upset by this breach of etiquette that he won in round 3, defeating Alireza Firouzja. The other winner was Levon Aronian, who beat Bacrot with the black pieces, giving Black its only win of the event so far (against six losses). Of course, it helps the cause when White plays an eccentric opening and stands clearly worse after just eight moves.
From the foregoing you can determine the names and scores of nine of the tournament's ten players (actually 11, as Vladimir Kramnik will take over for Bacrot, but not until the blitz), but what about the tenth? That's Fabiano Caruana, the top seed and the only player to draw all three games on day one.