Three games were drawn today in round 8 of the Candidates' tournament, and drawn quickly. The game between the leaders was interesting early on, as Levon Aronian uncorked 1.c4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Qb3!? against Viswanathan Anand, who replied with an interesting pawn sac: 3...d4 4.e3 c5 5.Qb5+ Nc6. White surrendered a lot of space and time for the material, and Anand drew by repetition after only 19 moves from a position of strength. Maybe he could have played for more, but an easy draw against his leading rival, with the black pieces, wasn't such a terrible result - especially since it means he keeps the lead on tiebreak.
Vladimir Kramnik could have joined Anand and Aronian on +2 with a win against Dmitry Andreikin, but he wasn't able to maintain his opening edge and even had to scramble a little to get the draw.
The third draw was Veselin Topalov - Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and was probably a missed chance for White. He had an edge in a 6.h3 Najdorf-turned-Dragon, and to avoid getting squeezed Mamedyarov played the interesting but possibly not fully sound 18...Nc4. It was a good practical choice, though, and Topalov returned the piece with 20.Bd4 (rather than 20.Qb4!), after which it was a routine draw.
Finally, Peter Svidler's hopes for first in the tournament probably came to an end when he lost to Sergey Karjakin. Svidler had White and played very aggressively, with the King's Indian Attack, but Karjakin defended well and eventually reached a superior ending with rooks and opposite-colored bishops. With best play Svidler probably should have drawn, but it was difficult, and with the nice sequence 64...Rxd4! 65.Kxd4 b6! Karjakin proved a win.
The tournament standings are curious now: Anand and Aronian are on +2, Kramnik is +1, and everyone else is -1.
The games (with my comments) are here, and tomorrow's pairings (with player scores in parentheses) follow: