London Chess Classic, Round 5: A Three-Way Tie For First
Going into the rest day, with two rounds remaining, the London Chess Classic is turning into a tremendous horse race down the backstretch. Five of the eight players are within a point (a point on the 3-1-0 scoring system) of first!
The leaders going into the day's round were Anand and McShane, and with the former facing the latter it was an excellent chance for one of them to take a serious lead. Anand had White, but McShane continued to play the great chess he has shown during the entire event, and the world champion was unable to make anything of his very small edge: draw.
Magnus Carlsen took advantage, joining Anand and McShane in first place by beating David Howell. Carlsen had Black, a color which has not produced sterling results for him in this event or in general the past few months, but today there were no problems. He equalized quickly, and if he wasn't better after that he at least got to enjoy a position that was easier to play. Howell started slipping around the time control, and making serious errors right after it, ultimately blundering a piece. (For more details, see the link below: super-sub IM Ken Regan has annotated the game for us.)
The day's other winner was Hikaru Nakamura, who had an easy time against Nigel Short's 9...e4(?!) version of the Marshall Gambit. (Ken has annotated this game for us as well.) This put Nakamura on 8 points, a point behind the leading trio and equal with Vladimir Kramnik, who drew today. Michael Adams kept Kramnik under pressure in a Berlin sideline (interestingly, Anand-McShane was also a Berlin sideline, but a different one), but the ex-champ's fine defense held the day.
Standings After Round 5:
1-3. Carlsen, Anand, McShane 9
4-5. Kramnik, Nakamura 8
6. Adams 6
7. Howell 2
8. Short 1
Round 6 Pairings (on Tuesday; Monday is a rest day):
Kramnik - Carlsen (Kramnik has joked a bit lately about Carlsen being his "client"; we'll see how that works out)
Short - Howell
McShane - Nakamura
Adams - Anand
Finally, here's the link to replay Howell-Carlsen and Nakamura-Short, with Ken Regan's notes.
Reader Comments (1)
I found the column by Buecker that Dennis refers to, from ChessCafe here. It considers 11.Qxf3 and 11.d4, but not Nakamura's 11.g3. So maybe Nakamura deserves more credit for diverting the game down his chosen paths and avoiding Black's tricks.