Biel, Round 8: Carlsen-Morozevich Drawn
And so the two-horse race remains a race, with the thoroughbreds in the same order as when they started, with Carlsen ahead. Ironically, while both players tend to avoid absolute main lines they both jumped in today, playing the sometimes trendy Vienna Variation. Both played rapidly, and while the other games were just getting through the opening they reached a drawish rook ending. Drawish soon turned to drawn, and both benefited from the result. Carlsen managed to keep his only rival in the tournament at bay; Morozevich was able to hold with Black, maintain his tournament standing and gain some more rating points. (Considering that the financial importance of getting back to the Grand Slam-level tournaments, this should not be underestimated!)
Vachier-Lagrave and Shirov have had their scores in sync for most of the event, and their games today continued the pattern. Both won to return to 50%: Shirov by wringing out a bishop vs. almost perfectly blockading knight ending against Caruana, and Vachier-Lagrave by winning with a fascinating rook sac against Pelletier. Both games merit a closer look: Shirov's technical prowess was impressive, and so was Vachier-Lagrave's sacrificing a rook on move 23 - never to win it back!
Two rounds remain in this year's Biel; for now, here are the standings (they're using 3-1-0 scoring; normal scoring given afterwards in parentheses):
1. Carlsen 17/24 (6/8)
2. Morozevich 14 (5.5)
3-4. Vachier-Lagrave, Shirov 10 (4)
5. Caruana 6 (2.5)
6. Pelletier 4 (2)
Reader Comments (1)
The Caruana Shirov ending was quite instructive, as well as the many 'give it up Shirov, it's a draw!' comments that were being made until the final couple of moves.
[DM: Yeah, online kibitzers are so insightful! Still, the more of them, the better the health of our game.]