Amber, Day 7: Ivanchuk Leads Again
Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 1:45AM It's still a good and very competitive tournament! Magnus Carlsen had taken over clear first for the second time after yesterday's wins, but another loss let Vassily Ivanchuk leapfrog him once again. Carlsen lost the blindfold game to Vugar Gashimov and only drew the rapid game, so when Ivanchuk drew and then beat Alexander Grischuk, it put him back into clear first by half a point.
Meanwhile, the chase pack is hanging around: Sergey Karjakin beat Ruslan Ponomariov 2-0 to reach third place, where he's tied with Boris Gelfand, a 1.5-.5 winner over Jan Smeets. Vladimir Kramnik is another half a point behind, after a win and a loss to Levon Aronian.
Combined Standings After Round 7:
1. Ivanchuk 10
2. Carlsen 9.5
3-4. Gelfand, Karjakin 8.5
5. Kramnik 8
6-7. Grischuk, Svidler 7.5
8. Gashimov 7
9. Aronian 6
10. Ponomariov 5.5
11. Smeets 3.5
12. Dominguez 2.5
Round 8 Pairings:
Svidler - Ponomariov
Karjakin - Grischuk
Ivanchuk - Dominguez
Smeets - Gashimov
Carlsen - Kramnik
Aronian - Gelfand
This looks like a potentially great round for Ivanchuk, who gets to take on the tournament's tail-ender while Carlsen faces Kramnik in a must-see match of two guys who at the very least seem incredibly motivated against each other.
In the meantime, it has been a while since I presented any games from this tournament, so you can replay several interesting ones - mostly from this round but with one from round 6 as well - here.
Reader Comments (1)
Hi, thank you very much. good job.