Round 5 of the Tal Memorial was still another good one, and it saw a shakeup at the top. Coming into the round Alexander Morozevich and Teimour Radjabov were tied for first, and with Morozevich getting Black against Levon Aronian and Radjabov the white pieces against Magnus Carlsen one would think Radjabov would have the better chance to come out of the round on top. And early on, that guess looked good. Radjabov didn't get anything with the Scotch, but his position looked pretty safe, like a draw was the inevitable result. Morozevich, had an extra piece in exchange for a horde of pawns - four of them, mostly in the center.
But then things changed. Carlsen finally got "his" kind of position, one where he could grind and grind, and he won the game a little at a time. Meanwhile, the Aronian-Morozevich contest was always very complicated, and in major time trouble Aronian was unable to negotiate the complications and the once thriving species of white pawns were soon an endangered species. Aronian made the time control, but the only effect was that it gave him time to resign.
Carlsen thus caught Radjabov in a tie for second, a point behind Morozevich. It would have been a tie for third, had Vladimir Kramnik managed to defeat Hikaru Nakamura, but while he managed to obtain an edge with the black pieces it wasn't quite enough to gain serious winning chances. The post-mortem was amusing. Nakamura felt that he had been caught in some typical great Kramnik preparation, but through very hard work he managed to avoid defeat. Then Kramnik spoke and seemed to be having a little too much fun. First, he indicated that it wasn't prep at all - just old theory he didn't seem to remember perfectly either. Then he pointed out several ways Nakamura could have completely equalized, where if anything it would have been him (Kramnik) who had to show a little accuracy. Nakamura had a look at that point that seemed to me a combination of embarrassment and "How could I not have seen this?" Nakamura clearly isn't happy with his play these days, judging by his tweets, but (as I'm sure he knows very well) these kinds of off-days happen to everyones, even 2780s! Fortunately for him, he played well enough to hold the game. Maybe it's too late for him to win the tournament, but there's still time for him to do some damage to the leaders.
Also suffering a lapse today, and also recovering, was Fabiano Caruana. Caruana had some fantastic preparation with Black in a Gruenfeld and obtained a big advantage against Alexander Grischuk. Had he played 19...Re8, he would have kept it and possibly gone on to win a truly great game; instead, he played 19...Qe7??, and after 20.Nc7 he was fortunate (and displayed some fortitude!) to still hold the draw.
Finally, Evgeny Tomashevsky and Luke McShane drew a crazy game that would have received more attention - deservedly - if they had been doing a bit better in the tournament.
Round 6 Pairings: