It wasn't the most thrilling round of this year's Tata Steel Chess Tournament, but with Ian Nepomniachtchi getting back into a tie for first it was a significant one. Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand entered the round tied for first, and that's how they left it, too - but with a little company.
For Carlsen, it was a fairly comfortable draw with Black against Sam Shankland. He never had a ghost of a chance to achieve more than that, as Shankland's sound and solid play kept it a two-results game throughout. A similar story could be told about Anand's draw with Richard Rapport: a fairly comfortable hold with the black pieces, but without any opportunities for more.
That left the door open not only for Nepomniachtchi, but for Ding Liren and Anish Giri to catch up, if any of them could win. On paper Giri had the best chance, with White against Jorden Van Foreest, but he never achieved enough of a plus (at least in his eyes) to play for more, and the game was agreed drawn in just 30 moves. Giri was a pawn up, but apparently felt that Black's counterplay with the bishop pair would suffice. Ding had Black against Vladimir Kramnik, and for what - the sixth time(??!!) in the tournament Kramnik obtained a losing position. (Or was it seven?) Kramnik lost four of the previous five lost positions he had, but this time he escaped when Ding fell for a nice but not terribly difficult cheapo. That said, the win wasn't obvious either, but all the same Kramnik was fortunate to escape.
As for Nepo, he defeated Santosh Vidit, who seemed on his way to holding in a Petroff Defense. Nepomniachtchi enjoyed a nice space advantage, but until Vidit's 26...Kb7 it wasn't something that should prove fatal. Even after that White's win wasn't completely clear until Black played 34...Kc7?, which Nepo exploited with 35.Rb4!, followed shortly by Vidit's resignation.
One other game finished with a winner, and that was Vladimir Fedoseev's marathon win with Black against Teimour Radjabov. It was one of those games where the players could have agree to a draw at any point over a very long stretch, but first one player and then the other decided to flog the dead horse - or the almost-dead horse, as it turned out. Even having lost/sacrificed a pawn, Radjabov still enjoyed equality in the rook ending as late as move 78, but the terrible 79.Rg7+?? let Black's king escape up the board. White still could have put up a bit more resistance with 82.Rd8, because 82...Kb4 83.Rd4+ Rc4? allows White to save the game in the pawn ending: 84.Rxc4+ Kxc4 85.Kf6 b5 86.axb5 Kxb5 87.Kxg6 and the players queen simultaneously.
But Radjabov probably chose 79.Rg7+ because he assumed that the pawn ending resulting from the immediate exchange would be drawn. What he missed is that after 82.Rxc6+ Kxc6 83.Kf6 b5 84.axb5+ Black does not have to play 84...Kxb5, when 85.Kxg6 transposes to the drawn final position of the line given above. Instead, Fedoseev met 87.Kxg6 with the brilliant 87...Kd6!! - a resource that was unavailable to Fedoseev in the other line - and Radjabov resigned. Black gains a crucial tempo in one line, and in another line forces White's king to g7, whereupon ...a1Q comes with check before White can promote his f-pawn. It's a nice tactic for the puzzle books of the future. (And it's very possible that it already exists as an endgame study, though without the superfluous h-pawns.)
Finally, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Jan-Krzysztof Duda played a draw that will be of interest only to those whose aesthetic sense will be tickled by the hyper-symmetry of the game.
The games (without notes) are here; these are the pairings for Wednesday's round 10 action: