As the Grand Prix in Khanty-Mansyisk starts heading down the home stretch, it's looking like Fabiano Caruana is pretty nearly guaranteed a spot in the next Candidates' event. Meanwhile, it looks increasingly unlikely that Evgeny Tomashevsky will gain the other spot from the Grand Prix, as a fresh loss has put him at -2 and in 11th place - next to last.
Starting from the top of the table, Caruana had the white pieces against Boris Gelfand, and Gelfand showed that even when he isn't winning a lot of games (so far, he has drawn them all) he can always be counted on for strong preparation and resilient play. Gelfand was never in the slightest trouble and drew comfortably.
Sergey Karjakin started the round half a point behind Caruana, and ended it the same way. He had White against Baadur Jobava, which might have seemed a good opportunity to catch up. Jobava played another of his slightly eccentric lines - the Hecht-Reefschlager line of the French (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nc6!?/?!) and a complicated and non-traditional middlegame ensued. Karjakin was probably a bit better most of the way, but couldn't maintain it and the game was agreed drawn in a messy position where anything could have happened. It was a pity that they stopped the game where they did, but fortunately such truncated games have been a rarity in super-GM tournaments the past few years.
Peter Svidler was also tied for second, half a point back, but he was defeated by Leinier Dominguez who leapfrogged him into second place. Dominguez simply played a very good game and was the deserved winner. If we want to blame one move in particular, we can make 25...Nh5 the culprit; the gutys 25...g5 might have been what Svidler needed to keep soul and body together.
Hikaru Nakamura closed to within a point of Caruana with his first win of the tournament, a rather easy victory against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who is in a kind of free fall at the moment. MVL lost rather badly, getting in trouble early and then blundering with 25...Rd4??, missing the simple 26.Qc3 Bc8 27.Rce1. This strengthens Nakamura's chances of qualifying for the Candidates', while for Vachier-Lagrave it was his fourth loss in a row.
The day's other winner was Anish Giri, who put a serious dent in Tomashevsky's dwindling hopes for a Candidates' berth. Around move 25 or so Giri thought that Black should have opted for a setup with ...f5 and ...Bf6, when he would stand quite well. Tomashevsky waited too long, and once Giri got in 32.f4 it was all going to be suffering for Black. It took a while, but Giri reeled in the full point in the second time control.
Finally, there was a third draw on the day, a 21-move brevity (17 moves plus the repetition) between Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexander Grischuk. Hopefully they'll provide more excitement tomorrow, when the pairings are as follows: