The tournament has continued to be competitive and generally aggressive, with 16 decisive games so far out of 42, with plenty of other games seeing players miss significant chances for the full point. It has also tightened at the top, and Vidit Gujrathi is no longer the sole leader, though he continues to enjoy a share of the lead.
In round 5 he was caught by Richard Rapport and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who won against Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Jorden Van Foreest, respectively. Rapport mishandled the opening against Pragg, but in the sharp middlegame that ensued his opponent lost the thread and was soon lost (though the game went on for a long time). As for Mamedyarov, JVF got too optimistic, and his 21.Nf7 seemed to be a blunder - he probably just missed 21...Rxf7 or, perhaps more likely, missed 24...Nxf5. Whatever the case, he was lost, but Shakh gave him a chance to escape. 35.Qb7+ would have drawn, but 35.Rc1? allowed Black to coordinate everything for a final attack, and Black won.
As for Vidit, he was fortunate to draw with Anish Giri in round 5, and in round 6 he achieved a more normal draw with Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Mamedyarov remained tied for first after his short but shaky draw with Nils Grandelius, but the third member of the triumvirate changed. Magnus Carlsen defeated Rapport to take his place in shared first. Rapport was within a move or two of solving his problems on the black side of a Catalan, but didn't manage to find the best moves at the key moments. (20...Ne5 probably would have resulted in a quick draw, for instance.)
There were two other decisive results. One saw Fabiano Caruana lose a horrible game to Giri. The weirdness started with the baffling 18.Kh1 and concluded with the unbelievable 40.Rb6. Sometimes, one's brain goes on strike, and when that happens all you can do is shrug it off and hope it feels like returning to work the next day. Speaking of going on strike, your blogger has decided to give himself a pass when it comes to examining games in the Giuoco Piano. So (almost) all I can tell you about Sergey Karjakin's game with JVF was that it was a Giuoco and that he won it.
All the other games from these two rounds have more robust comments from yours truly, and you can replay them here. And here are the pairings for round 7, today (Saturday):