It's pretty hard to keep the champion down for very long. Today Magnus Carlsen won a model game against Aryan Tari, showing that even though the trope of an ideal knight on d5 against a bad bishop on e7 is fodder for the textbooks, it doesn't prevent even very strong GMs like Tari from falling prey to such ideas. (Nor is he the strongest player to stumble into that sort of mess: see Judit Polgar's beautiful win over Vishwanathan Anand from Wijk aan Zee in 1998.)
With his confident win, Carlsen leapt back into the lead, as Alireza Firouzja drew his classical game with Fabiano Caruana. The draw was not a bad result against the world's #2, and with the black pieces, but it meant that he fell behind. He would have trailed even if he had succeeded in the Armageddon game, but he didn't - Caruana won. Firouzja thus trails the champ by a point.
Levon Aronian failed to make up any ground on the leaders, as he was unable to make enough of his edge as White in a Maroczy Bind, and his classical game with Jan-Krzysztof Duda finished in a draw. Aronian pressed for a long time in the Armageddon game, but never managed to achieve anything tangible. As a draw with White in an Armageddon game is no better than a loss, he was eventually forced to take extreme risks, and in the end Duda won that game.
Aronian and Caruana are not quite out of the running, but the hour is getting late. Fortunately for Aronian, he is facing Tari in round 9, and while that's no guaranteed point - especially since he has Black against him - it's a very good chance on paper. Caruana will face the resurgent Duda - also with Black. That leaves the battle that will very likely determine the tournament winner if someone wins the classical game; in fact, it's guaranteed to do so if Carlsen wins. Here are the pairings:
Finally, here's today's Carlsen-Tari game, with brief notes.