Round 7 of the Norway Chess tournament was a very long one, with four of the five games going past five hours, even past five and a half hours, and one game nearly reaching the whopping eight hour mark. But despite that the games were relatively uneventful. Peter Svidler and Simen Agdestein drew quickly, and the next game to finish was between Magnus Carlsen and Alexander Grischuk. Carlsen had the better structure in a knight vs. bishop ending and eventually won a pawn, but the material was too limited and Black's pieces too active for him to convert the edge.
Next to finish was Fabiano Caruana vs. Veselin Topalov. Caruana had what chances there were with his slight material advantage (rook and two pawns vs. bishop and knight, plus other material for both sides), but Topalov's pieces were well-coordinated against the pawns. In fact, the previous sentence requires correction. There was one brief moment early in the game where Topalov had a chance: if he played 23...Nb6 instead of 23...Ne5 he would have had a serious advantage, according to the computer. Missing that one shot, the game remained very balanced for the remaining 43 moves.
Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian agreed to a draw mere moments after the Caruana-Topalov game finished, but despite similarity of result, and length both in time and moves the storyline was the reverse of its counterpart. For a long time nothing much was happening, with Kramnik trying to gnaw away at Black's slightly weak pawn on c6 (the product of the minority attack b2-b4-b5xc6). After 50 moves Kramnik was finally making some progress, but precision was needed. Apparently 51.Qb6 was the right move, because after Kramnik's very natural 51.Ba4 Aronian was ready with the tactically alert 51...f4! 52.exf4 Bxh4!, assuring himself of sufficient counterplay to draw. The follow-up with 55...Bxg3+!! 56.Kxg3 h4+ 57.Kh2 Qd6 was especially nice, after which it was clear that Kramnik needed to acquiesce in the draw lest something worse happen to him.
That valuable bit of wisdom escaped the young Anish Giri, who suffered a rather painful and altogether unnecessary defeat against Sergey Karjakin. Giri inflicted doubled and isolated pawns on Karjakin all the way back on move 18, and then did very little for about the next 36 moves. At that point Karjakin managed to improve his structure, albeit at the cost of immobilizing one of his rooks. 20-some odd moves later Giri won the exchange, but Karjakin believed - maybe rightly, maybe not - that he had an unbreakable fortress. After collecting the exchange on move 76, Giri engaged in another long session of doing nothing/very little until he hit on a very good idea, to put the queen on h1 and go for the g4 break. The latter finally occurred at move 116, and it worked. The position was very different and somewhat dangerous for Black, and Karjakin made what should have been a fatal error when he played 118...c5. That move was desirable and worked out, but he needed to play 118...Qc7 instead. Not an easy move to play, especially as it gives up the d-pawn.
After 118...c5 119.Qf7+ Ka6 White needed to ask himself what was Black's idea or threat, and then he would have found 120.Qd7 (or 120.Qe8), preventing Black from (safely) activating his queen with ...Qc6. Having eliminated Black's main source of counterplay, Giri could have finished Karjakin off after activating his rook. Instead he played 120.Rc2?, and after 120...Qc6! 121.Qg6 c4! Black was completely fine. Now it was White who needed to show a modicum of accuracy and - more importantly - White also needed to recognize that he was in more danger than Karjakin. Giri failed at this task, and rather than repeating the position with 131.Ka2, asking Karjakin if he had any good ideas, he played 131.Rc4?? Karjakin played 131...Bc3, and White is getting mated in pretty obvious fashion Giri resigned right away. (Games, without notes, are here.)
As a result of this well-deserved victory, Karjakin is now tied for first, while Giri is tied for last; had Giri won the opposite would have been the case! One point still separates first place from last with two rounds to go, so everyone has all to play for on Thursday and Friday. Tomorrow is a rest day, and here's what we have to look forward to in round 8: