It's only one round into the 2014 Candidates, but maybe the recently deposed world champion is back! Viswanathan Anand smoothly dispatched top seed and frequent bete noire Levon Aronian on the white side of an Anti-Marshall, bringing hope to his fans and fear to Aronian's. It was Aronian who produced the first new move in a position both players had tested before (though not against each other), but Anand seemed better prepared or at least more skilled in handling the resulting position. After 19.Ne5! White achieved an extremely pleasant ending with two great bishops against a mediocre bishop and knight, and Anand didn't have too much trouble winning the game. It's too early to draw any sweeping conclusions, but given that Anand is one of those players who is much stronger when confident the rest of the field may have something to worry about.
The other three games were drawn, and in two of the games Black had no trouble at all in the opening. Dmitry Andreikin may not have taken Vladimir Kramnik out of preparation in the entire game, and while the same can't be said for the Shakhriyar Mamedyarov - Veselin Topalov clash Black was at least equal for a long time. Maybe Mamedyarov managed to achieve a small plus around move 27, but a tactical flurry soon resulted in a draw. In the third game Sergey Karjakin did achieve an opening plus against Peter Svidler in a Taimanov Sicilian, but his inaccurate 22.Ng3?! allowed Svidler to more or less force an immediate draw with 22...Bc4.
UPDATE: Games here, with my comments.
Here are the pairings for round 2: