Magnus Carlsen's recent tournaments have often seemed to follow a pretty consistent pattern. He gets off to a decent start, has a long lull of decent but not particularly special results, and then after a tough (even, on occasion, a lucky or undeserved win) becomes an unstoppable monster. Once he gets his confidence up, he's a buzz saw.
And so it is here in Biel. For a good chunk of the make-up game with Viktor Bologan Carlsen didn't seem to have anything special going, but after overcoming a severe time shortage to outplay Bologan and win, he started turning into a new player. In round 7 he took on the leader, Wang Hao, and won that game with Black as well. It was a pity for Wang Hao, as he had been playing great chess in the tournament and played a very nice game against Carlsen as well. A positional pawn sac gave the Chinese grandmaster enduring pressure, and had played 46.b6 his position would have been unloseable. 46...a3 would be forced, and then White could choose between 47.Nxa3 Nxb6 48.Nxc5 with a dead draw, or 47.Nc1 Kf8 48.e5 Nd5 49.b7 Ke7 50.Nxa3 with a position that's still drawn but which forces Black to show some accuracy.
Instead, Wang Hao erred with 46.Ndb2, missing a nasty trick: 46...Nb6! The knight is immune from capture (47.Nxb6?? a3, 48...a2, 49...a1Q), but the upshot was that Black kept his extra pawn, and now all the winning chances were his. Even after that the game may not have been lost, but the tide had turned and Wang Hao was unable to regain his mental equilibrium. 52.Na3 was inaccurate (52.Kc2 kept the damage manageable) and 55.Ne5 (again, 55.Kc2 was better) finished the job.
As a result, Wang Hao and Carlsen were tied for first at the end of round 7, and they both won in round 8 to maintain their places. Wang Hao impressively bounced back by defeating Hikaru Nakamura with the black pieces. They played a rare line of the English, reprising the game Nakamura-Topalov from this year's Wijk aan Zee. Nakamura varied with the very, very rare 8.Be3, and with Wang Hao's 8...Qd8 the players were on untrodden ground. 20...Ne6 seems to have been inaccurate (the engine prefers 20...Qb6, a sensible move that keeps White's queen out of d6), and White's resulting edge could have grown larger had Nakamura played b4 on moves 22, 23 or 24. After 30 moves the chances were roughly level (which is not to say that the position was in any sense a "flat" one - the game was non-standard throughout, with each side having very different and unusual trumps), with the trend running in Black's favor. 32.Nc5 would have maintained equality; after 32.Nd2? White was in trouble, and 34.Rfe1 probably lost the game. (Right idea, wrong rook.) Black's d-pawns were too much, and in dealing with them White suffered serious king problems as well.
As for Carlsen, his second game with Bologan in three days gave him his third consecutive win. Bologan essayed the Benko Gambit for the second time in the tournament (he had done so in round 5 against Wang Hao), and managed to keep the extra pawn to the end. Normally White's a- and b-pawns are weak, but Carlsen not only managed to keep them reasonably safe, he was eventually able to turn the a-pawn (which became the b-pawn) into the winning asset.
It's not just the Wang Hao and Carlsen show, though; Anish Giri is just a point behind (a point behind in the 3-1-0 scoring system, that is, which means that if he wins while they draw, he leapfrogs them into first by a point). In round 7 he was unable to get anything with White against Nakamura in a "near-Meran", and after what may have been the minimum number of moves permitted - 30 - they agreed to a draw in a completely even knight ending. In round 8, however, he bounced back, defeating Etienne Bacrot on the black side of a 6.h3 Najdorf-turned-Keres Attack Scheveningen. Bacrot's 10.Bg2 varied from Vallejo Pons' (and others') 10.a3, which he used to crush Topalov in their rapid match earlier this year. That worked out well for Black, but Giri's 19...bxa3 was a big error. (19...dxe5 was equal.) Fortunately for Giri, Bacrot returned the favor with interest. Instead of 21.Qd3, with a big advantage, Bacrot's 21.Nd4? either blundered the exchange or misjudged the compensation afforded by his bishops. Maybe there was some way for White to hold, but he didn't manage to keep control over Giri's rooks and the blunder 32.c6?? didn't help either.
After drawing with Giri in round 7 and losing to Wang Hao in round 8, Nakamura is in a distant fourth. Bacrot is well back in fifth, ahead of only Bologan. They played in round 7, and the game was drawn - a success for both players. For Bologan, it put him on the scoreboard - at last he has more points than in the tournament than we do! - while for Bacrot it was his first draw with the King's Indian, after suffering three pretty brutal losses with it in the previous rounds.
Standings After Round 8 (on 3-1-0 scoring):
1-2. Carlsen, Wang Hao 16
3. Giri 15
4. Nakamura 10
5. Bacrot 6
6. Bologan 1
Round 9 Pairings:
Bacrot - Nakamura
Giri - Carlsen
Bologan - Wang Hao