While Magnus Carlsen has done most of the running in this tournament, it's Fabiano Caruana who has been stealing the show of late. Not only did he defeat Carlsen in the first cycle, he has won back-to-back games the past two rounds to catch up to Carlsen going into their head-to-head in the last round. Carlsen will have White, and if they draw then, unfortunately, Caruana will only come in second on tiebreaks despite winning in their head-to-head. (At least that was what I had heard; I haven't checked the tournament regulations.)
Why "unfortunate", someone may ask (especially strong Carlsen fans)? For two reasons, neither of which is based on an antipathy towards the young Norwegian. First, because I dislike tiebreaks in general. If they can't just be co-winners, then have a rapid or blitz playoff. Second, if one must have tiebreaks, head-to-head should be the first tiebreaker rather than "most wins". What could be more relevant than that, if we're comparing their tournament performances?
Going into round 8 it seemed that Teimour Radjabov was going to be Carlsen's biggest competition, but Caruana managed to beat him in the former's favorite King's Indian. Caruana enjoyed continuing pressure, but it was only a mistake by Radjabov on the very last move of the first time control that did him in. Radjabov had been in serious time trouble, and it ended one move too late for him to survive. Before the game Radjabov had been just half a point behind Carlsen; after it, it was Caruana who took his spot.
In the other games in that round, Carlsen got nothing against Sergei Karjakin and they drew for the second time in the event, while Shakhriyar Mamedyarov continued his descent into madness with a second loss against Hikaru Nakamura.
In round 9 Caruana won again, this time over - who else - tournament whipping boy Mamedyarov, while the other two games were drawn. Against Carlsen, Radjabov took a page out of his playbook from the London Candidates', parlaying a slightly better but drawn ending into one where he had to suffer. Carlsen dragged the game past move 100 trying to find something before agreeing to split the point. Carlsen never really came close, but Radjabov's overly compliant approach forced him to spend an extra 2+ hours suffering to achieve what he probably could have had without any sweat. Karjakin and Nakamura drew their game as well, leaving both players (and Radjabov too) a full point behind the leaders.
To summarize then, Carlsen and Caruana are both +2 (5.5/9), Karjakin, Nakamura and Radjabov all have 50% (4.5) while the entirety of the minus score has fallen upon Mamedyarov (2.5 points). Here are the last round pairings:
The B tournament ended today, and was won by Pavel Eljanov; his score of 6/9 was half a point better than Alexander Motylev's and a point better than that of Wang Hao and early leader Etienne Bacrot.