The crazy, super-aggressive play of rounds 3 and 4 wasn't seen in round 5. There were two short draws, and the third draw fizzled out pretty quickly as well, even if it took a while longer before the draw could be made official. But the other two games were decisive, interesting, and consequential - in one game the winner joined the tie for first, and in the other the loser left the tie.
The first game to finish was Wesley So vs. Richard Rapport, ending in a draw by repetition that has been seen in many previous games. An apologetic So said afterward that he had slept very poorly the night before due to too much coffee too late in the day, so it was better safe than sorry.
Peter Svidler and Sam Shankland also drew quickly: Svidler was more or less forced to repeat, while Shankland was mistaken in thinking that he was similarly forced. That said, his other option, while playable, did not provide him with an advantage, so it wouldn't have been a bad choice even if he had assessed it as Svidler and the engines did.
The third draw was between Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Leinier Dominguez. Mamedyarov played a very interesting pawn sac in a Queen's Gambit Accepted, and enjoyed a sustained initiative and a lead in development. Dominguez played very well, however, and in the end Mamedyarov found nothing better than a combination that ultimately regained the pawn at the cost of mass liquidation, and the draw was inevitable.
The first decisive game to finish was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's impressive victory over Dariusz Swiercz. Swiercz blitzed out his first 17 moves with Black in a sharp Italian line, all prep he had been looking at with his coach, commentator Alejandro Ramirez, just before the game. As it turned out, MVL's coach had also examined the line at some point, but Vachier-Lagrave clearly hadn't looked at it as recently as Swiercz did. So he had to take his time from early on, trying to recall/reconstruct/figure out what to do. After his 18th move he was almost 50 minutes behind Swiercz on the clock, but he had avoided any grave dangers and found a promising plan that made his position easier to play. Now it was Swiercz's turn to start thinking, and he didn't cope with his challenges as well as his opponent did. A trail of inaccuracies left him in trouble, and after 28...c4? he was simply lost. Vachier-Lagrave finished him off with confident, powerful play, and rejoined the tie for first. It was a very nice way to bounce back after his loss to Dominguez in round 4.
Finally, Jeffery Xiong also showed his resilience, bouncing back from his loss to Swiercz in round 4 by defeating none other than world #2 Fabiano Caruana in the present round. (Now world #3, falling below Ding Liren on the live rating list. How long has it been since he was out of the #2 spot? It's not official yet, so he may yet finish the event back in his "rightful" spot. But for now, he's #3 in the world and #4 in the tournament, out of the tie for first.) Early on things were going very smoothly for Caruana, who enjoyed a significant opening edge with Black. But at some point everything went completely off the rails, and the four-move sequence from moves 22-25 may have been the worst of Caruana's career as a grandmaster. Xiong didn't always find the best moves either, and Caruana could have saved the game. The last key moment came after Xiong's 34.Ra6. Caruana spent almost all his time trying to solve the position, but didn't manage it, and lost on time making his 36th move in an already hopeless position.
Today - Sunday - is a rest day. The round 5 games can be replayed here, with my comments, and I'm hoping to post the games for the first three rounds later today. And here's what we have to look forward to tomorrow, in round 6: