Today's matches were mostly routs, but there was one glorious exception. All the first-round pairings involved seeded players facing off against qualifiers, and while the latter are all terrific players there's still a gap (with one exception; two [at least or especially in blitz], counting yesterday, when qualifier and 2013 World Blitz Champion Le Quang Liem upended Teimour Radjabov) between them and the creme de la creme of the world's elite.
There were five matches today: Levon Aronian vs. Gawain Jones, Anish Giri vs. Peter Svidler, Magnus Carlsen vs. S.L. Narayanan, Alexander Grischuk vs. Rauf Mamedov, and Fabiano Caruana vs. Matthias Bluebaum. Excepting the Giri-Svidler match - the one case where the qualifier (Svidler) is himself a member of the world elite, and indeed, the player whose overall career is still the more impressive one - the other four matches were blowouts, with the losing side collectively achieving only three wins. Carlsen won 5.5-.5 (obviously going undefeated), Aronian won 5.5-2.5 (Jones won one game), Grischuk won 5.5-1.5 (also undefeated), and Caruana dropped a couple of games to Bluebaum on the way to a 5.5-2.5 victory (he started off 3-0, and was never really threatened).
Giri-Svidler, by contrast, was a dream match. The first seven games were decisive, with White winning the first six before Svidler broke the string in game seven. After a couple of draws, Svidler only needed a draw in game 10 to clinch the match, but lost. Two further draws ensued, and then Giri won the Armageddon game with White to win the match 7-6. (Giri's wins in games 1, 3, and 13 are here.)
Tomorrow the last of the first-round matches takes place between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Grigoriy Oparin, and then the quarter-finals will look like this:
Website here.