Today's round at the Tal Memorial was huge for the standings. Alexander Morozevich entered the round a point clear of the field, facing the winless Hikaru Nakamura with the white pieces. A good place to be, and when Nakamura overlooked Morozevich's idea of 22.c6 Nb8 23.f5 it looked like things were going the leader's way. Nakamura thought for a very long time - around 50 minutes - and found the way to stay in the game and keep things unclear. Still, things weren't too bad until White played 38.Qd1??, a move described by a bitterly sarcastic Morozevich as a "study-like move", his self-mocking way of referring to what was perhaps the only losing move (that wasn't an overt blunder). After that everything worked like clockwork for Nakamura, and he won to get back on 50%.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Kramnik defeated tailender Evgeny Tomashevsky to catch Morozevich in first at +2. It looked like Tomashevsky was going to achieve an easy draw in a quasi-Meran. But Kramnik managed to get a nibble with White, and that little bit grew and grew until by the end of the first time control he was winning. Kramnik has complained before about his fairly regular failures over the course of his career to win won endings, and after 42.h5+? it looked like the painting painter had a new "artwork" for his gallery. Fortunately for him, he was able to keep enough pressure on his opponent to push him into a second bout of time trouble, and the result was that Tomashevsky finally lost the game a second time with 68...Ke5?
The bad news for Morozevich is not just that he was caught by Kramnik, but that Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana are all just half a point behind. Carlsen had the easier time of it against Levon Aronian, but the latter's patient defense in the Berlin eventually led to a draw. Radjabov held against Alexander Grischuk in yet another 5.b3 Rossolimo - one of the variations suddenly made trendy by Anand-Gelfand. And Caruana gained his second win in his last three games with a win over Luke McShane. The evaluation swung back and forth from White (Caruana) having a winning advantage to unclear/equal, and after several swings landed for the last time in Caruana's favor.
Tomorrow is a rest day, and Saturday the show looks like this:
Round 7 Pairings:
Reminder: GM Ian Rogers' English-language commentary, which can be replayed on-demand, is here.