Magnus Carlsen entered today's 9th round with a half point lead over Sergey Karjakin, and with a comfortable draw with Black against Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu did his job. Unfortunately for him, Vassily Ivanchuk played an insanely poor game against Karjakin, and was destroyed in 22 pretty routine moves. They are thus tied for first going into the last round, and as if scripted they are paired in the last round, with Carlsen getting the white pieces.
In third in this strange tournament, at 50%, is Hikaru Nakamura, who was unable to achieve anything against Teimour Radjabov's Kalashnikov. With one round to go, then, here are the standings:
1-2. Carlsen, Karjakin 6
3. Nakamura 4.5
4. Radjabov 4
5. Nisipeanu 3.5
6. Ivanchuk 3
Final Round Pairings:
Carlsen - Karjakin
Ivanchuk - Nakamura
Radjabov - Nisipeanu