Round 5 of the Candidates' was very exciting, even if there was only one decisive game.
Viswanathan Anand came into the round in first place, and though playing Black would presumably have his chances against tailender Dmitry Andreikin. Indeed, Anand did manage to achieve an advantage, but Andreikin defended well and held the draw.
The marquee game saw Vladimir Kramnik take on Levon Aronian, and Kramnik played very energetically and obtained what he thought was a winning position. He was certainly pushing, but Aronian defended terrifically up until 33...Bxd5, which was a serious error that went unpunished. (Both 33...exf1Q/R+ and 33...hxg5 sufficed to hold.) Had Kramnik played 35.Rg1 he would have had a winning position, but after missing it the result was a rook ending where Kramnik's extra pawn wasn't enough to win.
Peter Svidler joined Kramnik and Aronian in second, half a point behind Anand, by winning against Veselin Topalov. Svidler showed his naivety (his word) by following an earlier game he played against Antoaneta Stefanova and walked into some strong preparation and a difficult position. It wasn't as bad as Svidler made it sound in his characteristically self-deprecating manner, but Topalov did have an advantage. Shades of the old Topalov, but once the preparation ended the flashes were gone. Svidler played very well and Topalov didn't, and he (Svidler) won pretty convincingly.
Finally, Sergey Karjakin and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov played a pretty calm draw in a Moscow Variation Sicilian, of all things. Karjakin is a player who characteristically heads for main lines, the sharper the better, so it was odd to see him play the quiet 3.Bb5+. Against a weaker player he might have been able to achieve something with the position after 15.Qxd4, but Mamedyarov did a fine job of neutralizing White's efforts and the game soon leveled out into a drawn rook ending. Black made it look easy, but there were some problems to solve.
The games are here, with only the lightest comments (zeitnot here, but maybe fuller comments will come later), and here are tomorrow's pairings (as usual, player scores are given in parentheses):