2021 Grand Swiss, Round 2

 When two-thirds of your players are within 50 rating points of the tournament's median rating, and eleven-twelfths are within 100 points of it, there is a likelihood of a high draw rate. This was the case for the FIDE Grand Swiss, and the results so far bear it out. After two rounds, only three if its 108 players are on 2, and only ten on 0.

That third seed Alireza Firouzja (France) is one of the three leaders is no surprise, but the other two, Alexandr Predke (Russia) and Ivan Saric (Croatia) are less well-known; Saric is up there courtesy of a second-round win against Kirill Alekseenko, who made his name by coming third in the 2019 event, which got him a wildcard for the Candidates.

Going into round 2, Jorden van Foreest (Netherlands) was on a highly impressive run, having drawn in all eleven games of the 2019 event as well as his opening game here, but this finally ended when he lost to Robert Hovhannisyan (Armenia).


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