Women's World Chess Champion Ju Wenjun beat Richard Rapport, Sam Shankland and Wei Yi on an amazing 2nd day of the FTX Road to Miami. Her performance was only surpassed by Sam Sevian, who took over the sole lead with a run of 5 wins in a row, and Arjun Erigaisi and Anish Giri, who both won 3 games and made a draw.

Sam Sevian came into Day 2 of the FTX Road to Miami in 2nd place, but took full advantage of Jeffery Xiong's stumble against Richard Rapport to end the day 3 points clear at the top.

Sam began the day by crushing Aryan Tari and Hans Niemann with the black pieces, commenting:

"Today was just an incredible day. I came into today trying to play solid, because I knew I had 3 Blacks out of the 4 games, but I decided to take some risk in the first game with this dubious opening in the Spanish. It did pay off, and then the 2nd and 3rd games were just better after that."

For Sam, a child of Armenian parents, it must have been particularly sweet to then convincingly beat Levon Aronian as well. Sam commented:

"It definitely gives me a confidence boost knowing that I can hang with them, that I can beat them and that’s pretty much what it is."

The final win of the day for Sam was a forfeit win, since Teimour Radjabov was feeling unwell and withdrew from the tournament.

The new player in 2nd place is now India's Arjun Erigaisi, who continues to demonstrate super-human powers of escaping from tough positions... and not just escaping but often winning them!

As well as Shankland, Arjun also managed to beat two of the most solid players around, Radek Wojtaszek and Leinier Dominguez.

Anish Giri also beat Wojtaszek and Shankland, while his win over an out-of-sorts Teimour Radjabov was the game that saw Teimour decide he had to drop out.

The day's standout performance, however, was perhaps by Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun. The top women have tended to struggle in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour for the simple reason that they've been among the lowest-rated players, but after losing her first 3 games Ju Wenjun went on to win 4 of the next 5!

It hasn't just been about the wins, however, but the memorable tactical finishes we've witnessed. For instance, against Richard Rapport.

Here the rook was attacked, but Ju Wenjun calmly sacrificed it with 59.Bxf8! Kxa7 60.Bc5+ and Wei Yi resigned before a queen appeared on the board on f8.

After a loss to Radek Wojtaszek, Ju Wenjun then bounced back to beat Sam Shankland, who went for an unnecessary tactic that had a huge flaw.

If Ju Wenjun had needed to play 33.Rc6 it would only have been equal after 33...Kd7 and the rook is chased around. Instead, however, Ju unleashed 33.Rd7+! and it was time to resign.

33...Kxd7 would run into 34.Bb5+, winning the rook and the game.

Wenjun wasn't quite finished, since in the final game of the day she defended against an attack by her countryman Wei Yi and then outplayed him in time trouble to pick up a hard-fought win.

A fantastic achievement, though the Women's World Champion remained modest afterwards.

"I’m kind of like surprised that this time I play much better than previous times and I think maybe because they want to beat me, so they choose some unclear game and I get some chances."

Ju Wenjun is currently in one of the Top 8 qualifying spots, but there are 7 rounds left to go.

Don't miss all the FTX Road to Miami action here on chess24 from 18:00 CEST!