While the action in round 2 of the Amber Blindfold & Rapid tournament was quite a bit calmer than in the first round, there were still quite a few blunders. The worst, perhaps, was a rerun for Hikaru Nakamura, but without the happy ending. Against Magnus Carlsen in round 1, both he and Carlsen(!!) imagined a black bishop on f6 rather than its true square of e5, and that led to a series of blunders (e.g. Nakamura twice moving his (white) rook to c7, and Carlsen letting it live). Today, in a winning position against Aronian, instead of playing Rb7 followed by capturing a black bishop on b5, he played Rc7 followed by "capturing" on c4. Aronian promptly played ...Bb5xc4, and that was the end of that. The other game was an exciting draw. Nakamura pressed, but Aronian held the pawn-down ending and has a share of the lead with 3.5/4.
Vladimir Kramnik's sufferings continued as well, and he blundered with full sight of the board. It wasn't as egregious as the foregoing, but I doubt Kramnik feels terribly consoled! After working to draw the first game, Kramnik managed to achieve a winning advantage in his rapid game (with Black, no less) against Viswnathan Anand, world champion and Kramnik's tormentor the past three years. He was up a pawn and it was a matter of technique...except that he promptly blundered the extra pawn to a very simply 2-3 move combination.
Boris Gelfand entered the day a co-leader, but several big errors against Alexander Grischuk - another co-leader - left him with just half a point from the two games. Grischuk has played some excellent chess so far, and is a deserved co-leader.
The third co-leader is Magnus Carlsen, who won twice against Vugar Gashimov in his trademark style: reach an approximately equal ending, and then grind the opponent into pestle. Carlsen's a terrific player across the board, but his superiority over his contemporaries in that particular respect is simply incredible.
The mini-matches Topalov - Karjakin and Giri - Ivanchuk totalled four draws, so the combined standings now look like this:
1-3. Aronian, Carlsen, Grischuk 3.5
4-5. Anand, Gelfand 2.5
6. Gashimov 2
7. Topalov 1.5
8-12. Giri, Ivanchuk, Karjakin, Kramnik, Nakamura 1
Tomorrow's pairings are as follows:
Since some other sources beat me to the punch today, I'll send those looking for deeper reports elsewhere, to the official site and TWIC. Also, here's the latest video from the official site, with Grischuk presenting his very impressive victory over Kramnik from the blindfold session in round 1.