Wijk aan Zee, Round 8: Shirov Still Leads, Carlsen and Kramnik Close Behind

In the A-Group, Shirov continues to lead (with 6 points), thanks to his managing to hold off Carlsen with White - in a Sveshnikov Sicilian, ironically. That keeps his half-point lead over Carlsen intact, and Nakamura didn't manage to catch Shirov, as he was upended by the resurgent Kramnik. Kramnik has scored 3½ points in the last 4 rounds, and is now tied with Carlsen for second. Nakamura is in clear fourth (with 5 points), and there's a host of players nipping at his heels.

At 4½/8 there's Ivanchuk, who drew quickly against the tournament's unofficial half-point bye, Anand. There's Karjakin, who only just now notched his first win of the tournament against Short. Dominguez is in the tie too, also with just one win in nine games, but today he drew with van Wely. Finally, there's Leko, who beat Smeets.

Anand is the only player with 4/8, ironically, and Caruana, who defeated Tiviakov, is alone at 3½. Short and Tiviakov have 2½, van Wely has 2, and Smeets brings up the rear with 1½.

Tomorrow is the second rest day, and on Tuesday we'll see these pairings:

Tiviakov - Anand

Smeets - Caruana

van Wely - Leko

Short - Dominguez

Nakamura - Karjakin

Carlsen - Kramnik (Good times there!)

Ivanchuk - Shirov (Anything could happen in this game.)

In the B group, Giri won again, disposing of Howell. His closest competitors - and they're not too close - are Ni Hua and So, who drew quickly against each other in this last round and are a point and a half behind: Giri has 6½, they have 5.

In the C group, Robson only managed to draw with bottom seed and tailender Plukkel, despite having the white pieces. Yet he remains in clear first, as his closest competitors, Gupta and Li Chao, drew with each other in 101 moves. (Surprisingly, that wasn't the longest game of the day. That honor went to the Group B game L'Ami-Harikrishna, which just ended in a 127 move draw a couple of minutes ago.)

More info here, tournament site here, the games with my comments nowhere.